1975 F-26 windshield leaking into headliner - advice wanted

chucka · Post by **chucka** » Mon Nov 12, 2007 6:35 am

I have a 75 F26 Express. I'm getting water dripping from the headliner. The source appears to be the seal between the windsheild frame and the topsides. The aluminum frame is corroded in places and has been re-painted. And was previously re-caulked badly. The plastic sidelights are pretty crazed. I would like to replace them. I'm thinking about pulling off the windshield, rebuilding and re-finishing it, and re-bedding it on the deck.

My issues:
I've tried to remove some of the screws that hold the windsheild frame extrusions together, without success. They seem like they are welded to the frame. There are a lot of screws (maybe 100). Is it practical to drill them out? Is there a better/easier way to get them out?

How do the sidelight frames attach to the front windsheild frame? How to remove the sidelights?

How to remove the hinges that hold the front frames for the windshield glass? There appear to be a row of screws across the top of the frame holding the hinges. If I get those out, will the glass frame and hinges lift of the stationary frame?

The sidelight frames appear to the screwed from above into the topsides. I removed the side panels where the captain and navigator seats are supported, and don't see any screws or bolts from underneath, but there are no exposed screw heads in the frame. How does one attack this?

The windshield frame is bolted from above through the topsides, I can get at the nuts by removing the headlineer, but I don't see any access to the bolt heads in the frame from above?

Any advice will be appreciated.
Regards,
Chuck

chucka · Post by **chucka** » Sat Nov 17, 2007 7:11 pm

Undeterred by the lack of input, I removed the windshield today from my F-26. I used a sawsall to cut through the screws that hold down the sidelights. They were #8 screws, inaccessable without dissassembling the frames. The screws were apparently stainless, and were very secure in the fiberglass windsheild mounting surface. I started at the aft end of each sidelight with a hacksaw last week, but would have been at it forever, so I switched to the sawsall. I went through two 9" metal cutting blades (14 tpi). I drove cedar shims in behind the sawsall as I moved forward to prevent binding of the blade. The bedding compound was still goey after 32 years, but the coverage was incomplete.

I slit the headliner under the windshield in the cabin and removed the nuts from the bolts under the front windsheild frame. Once the sidelights were free and the nuts were off, I was able to pry up the forward windsheild frame.

There is the main source of my leak. A very crappy job sealing the wires for the wipers and anchorlight which go up in side the window frame on the starboard forward corner.

I used a come-along with a home-made sling to lift the windshield off the boat. The windshield will go in the garage for re-furbishing over the winter. I'm thinking about building a hard-top. Any advice from anyone who might have either re-build the aluminum windshield or built a hard top on a budget would be appreciated. The boat looks kind of funny top-less. The winter cover will go on tommorow.
Chuck

gopher · Post by **gopher** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 11:51 pm

How did you end up making out with this project?

prowlersfish · Post by **prowlersfish** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:47 am

He did a nice job on it

http://www.trojanboats.net/wforum/viewt ... ight=#6117

gopher · Post by **gopher** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 11:52 am

Wow.... nice...

Thank you..