I must not be the only one who attempts to patch my windshields with Permatex bullseye repair kits. I picked up two rock chips in the past week. One of them turned into a 10 inch crack before I even knew it was there and the other one I stopped while it was still a bullseye. I tried to stop the long crack three times before I got it stopped. I use my dremel with a tiny round diamond ball and grind down into the end of the crack but the first two attempts I stopped too soon. On the third attempt Marilyn was convinced I was going to come right through but it appears to have stoppped the crack.
Is there other equipment out there that works and is reasonably priced? The Permatex kits are $16 each up here - I just bought 3 more yesterday.
Bob, Sean carries kits with him. His 4 windshields are made of unobtainium. I think he gets them at Wal Mart. If he does not respond, give him a PM.
Jim
Sean did in fact show me the kits from Wal Mart, he said about 6 bucks each or so.
I told him that it was a good idea and I should get a couple, that was a couple of years ago! :P
HTH
THANKS!
I use those kits - Permatex makes them - or maybe its Loctite now. If they're $6 then they'd be worth smuggling into the Great White North because they get $16 each for them up here. I know cuz I bought 3 yesterday. I'm thinking that others who have used them maybe have some tips on how to get better patches out of them. Sometimes I get a pretty good job but most of the time you can still tell where the bruise was and long running cracks are impossible for me to deal with, other than drilling them to stop them from running further.
The professional chip repairs don't look any better anyway. Sometimes you can't tell, other times it still shows. The difficulty with a bus windshield is that they are vertical or close to it, so getting the goop to flow into the hole/crack can be a challenge. Park your bus on a hill... Unless you have a 4 speed manual, LOL...
JC
Bob, I use the slide hammer made by Delta to stop the cracks I think you will like it a lot better than drilling cost around 15 bucks and works the first time.I use their products but I don't buy the kits www.deltakits.com (http://www.deltakits.com) big bucks.I see the price has gone up but I use the Magnibond one shoot cost 10.80 now for 5 which is still cheaper than WM
good luck
very cool tool.
http://www.deltakits.com/products/11/632/ (http://www.deltakits.com/products/11/632/)
Bob O T N
if you can get them use dental drill bits in your dremmel smaller hole and you can feel it hit the second layer of glass, no freezing required.
John
What do you use to inject those one-shots Clifford? Do you have a professional bridge or some single shot system? That slide hammer looks pretty cool - I'll see what they think about shipping one to Canada. Thanks for the tip on the dental bits - my mini diamond tip has worked well in the past - not sure why it was so hard to stop this one but I guess it had to be operator error - not going deep enough.
Bob, I have the single shot bridge I may have a extra if I can find it I will send it to you it may need a new cup but they don't cost much.
I bought a box full of the Delta stuff at the Clark County surplus auction in Vegas a few years back for 10 bucks I didn't even know what it was for till a windshield guy told me I made a good buy and showed me how to use it but it looked like it was worth 10 bucks to me LOL
good luck
So when you use one of the reusable bridges, what do you use to clean up? Do you need some special solvent to clean the resin off?
I use acetone when I use the bridge a good thing about a bridge it may take you 2 days but a long crack can be repaired you can repair a bunch of cracks for your friends with a 40.00 dollar bottle resin lol
good luck
I'll throw this out for you guys buying the kit's did you know it is against the law in most states to repair a windshield on the drivers side if the chip is in the drivers view area.
Here in Az the roadside vendors get busted every day for that 500.00 fine.
I got a chip in OK and no glass co would repair it for me on the drivers side and by the time we got to Brownsville I needed a windshield so I just fix my own and let my friends do theirs with my stuff.
good luck
So when you repair a long crack do you make bullseyes and inject the resin at intervals along the crack?
OK, since Jim dragged me into this :) here's my write-up (which also appeared in the magazine as a feature article a few months ago):
http://ourodyssey.blogspot.com/2007/09/arkansas-2-odyssey-0.html (http://ourodyssey.blogspot.com/2007/09/arkansas-2-odyssey-0.html)
(scroll down to find the bit about the repairs)
The brand of kit I use, simply because I can get them at any overnight stop Wal-Mart, is the "Fix-a_Windshield" brand from the makers of Fix-a-Flat tire repair.
My windshield is actually reverse-raked. I try to park facing uphill if at all possible and then drop my rear bags and fully extend the fronts to try to get a bit better angle, and I end up using several times as much resin as ought to be needed just because so much runs out of the tool.
This tool is positioned with suction cups and so you get more than one chance to get it right, and you can do more than one chip with a single kit. The kits are around $10 apiece, and we always carry at least two.
The no-repairs-on-drivers-side argument is one of the reasons we carry the kit and do it ourselves. The one time we had it done professionally they wanted to sell me a whole windshield and I basically told them to be my guest, but they'd need to get one in a day. They had no clue you couldn't just order one from Safe-Lite.
I can't speak to drilling because I have not yet had to learn that trick. I probably should find a donor windshield someplace to practice on.
-Sean
http://OurOdyssey.BlogSpot.com (http://ourodyssey.blogspot.com)
I was able to do a decent job on a rock chip in the little window above the driver's window on my Prevost, but ended up having the windscreen replaced on the Liberty when I couldn't stop it from spidering no matter what I did. I used the kit that Wally sells with the suction cups for around 10 bucks. If you're frugile with it, you should be able to fix several rock chips easily, just don't let the resin cure once you've opened the package. Will