Morris Minor Owners Club

Some of you may remember the hassle i had a few weeks ago trying to get the windcreen in.
Well despite the best efforts of a specialist fitter it's still not in there. He tells me that the flexible chrome strip is too wide for the channel!
I have lloked everywhere in the specialist Mog catalogues and established that there are two types of screen with an embellisher strip. one is rigid stanless steel in 2 parts, the other is a flexible chrome strip. Now as I can't get hold of the supplier at the mo I'm working on the assumption that he supplied me with what i asked for - the rubber for a metal strip. We've tried the chrome strip and that's not going in for sure. But neither will the metal strip - or at least my best efforts won't persuade it. Fitting the screen into the rubber and the rubber to the car means you can't get the curled section of the metal strip into the channel. Fitting the strip to the rubber and the screen to this has the strip popping out when the glass goes in.
Oh man this is driving me spare.
Please please can anyone help? The correct sequence to fit would be great, at least the when i know the technique I can establish whether i'm doing it wrong or have the wrong collection of bits.

hi
well i all ways thought, but i may be wrong, that the solid or shaped metal strip in 2 parts went in the rubber first.
the flexible strip goes in after the windscreen, you can also buy a special tool for this at esm minors at stonegate
au

Hello Peetee,

when I fitted the screen to my Wife's Traveller this is what I did:-

New rubber with plastic 'Chrome' insert.
Fit the rubber to the screen.
Lubricate the rubber, I used Duck Oil, a bit messy but it's what I had to hand.
Using a length of flexible wire fit the screen and rubber to the car.
Insert one end of the insert into the screen rubber, then pushing one side of the insert into the channel, prise the other edge under and into the channel with a blunt flat screwdriver working my way around until it was all in. The insert proved to be too long so it was trimmed to length.

All of the above took about an hour.

I can't comment on the metal strip as I've never seen one on a Morris.
My only thought is if it goes in the channel before you fit the screen then why won't it go in as the last operation? To me it looks as though the insert is designed to tension the rubber after it is fitted to the car. On my Triumph 2000, the metal insert goes last and, by the way, that is very difficult to fit, it takes me ages and I really hate the job.

Alec

the special tool is well worth buying for the plastic insert.

also of course it will depend on the year of your car as to whether you have the metal or flexible insert.

i have a metal insert in my 1966 van and pick up
in my late gpo van it is a plastic insert

insert is designed to tension the rubber after it is fitted to the car

Exactly what I was thinking as without the rubber will hold the screen in the car but the external lip is proud. The metal finisher is there to force the rubber seal into contact with the body of the car.

From the outset I bought what I believed was the rubber for the metal strip. I fitted the screen and new rubber to the car but the metal strip would not go in by hand. It looked like the channel in the rubber was the wrong shape as it was an inverted T and the metal strip would only need a J section in the rubber. The cold weather and lack of storage made the job well nigh impossible for my skinny, old hands so I phoned a local windscreen specialist who tried fitting some flexible chrome strip I had bought in the meantime. He said it was too wide for the channel and had a look at the metal strip. He said that the channel was in the wrong place for this (should be more widely set - although I wasn't convinced) and besides we would have to take the screen out again. He left promising to contact me when he found some trim for a Mini which he said was narrower. I've yet to hear from him. Now i've tried to fit the metal strip in the following order:
Glass, rubber, strip - rubber keeps pulling off screen because strip is 'sprung' so ends are'nt parallel
Rubber, strip, glass - rubber needs to stretch around screen otherwise strip is too long, overlaps and eventually pulls itself out of the channel
Glass rubber, car, strip - screen sits slightly sunken because trim is not there to tension rubber against outside of car body. as a result it's practically impossible to get the j-section of the strip (which is facing away from you) down and into the channel.

Duck Oil

When was the last time you had to oil a Duck...? Sorry... I'll get me coat... ;)

PEETEE... I can state with absolute certainty that if you have the
ealier screen rubber and the stainless steel finisher(NOT plastic)
then the whole thing has to be assembled BEFORE fitting to the car.

I had my mine done on the insurance and watched the re-fitting
done by one man who refused any assistance. He fitted the trim
to the rubber and the rubber to the screen and then the lot to the car.
He made it look easy but he was a professional! The later type which
accepts the plastic/chrome finisher has the finisher fitted AFTER the
screen has been refitted to the car and there is a tool available for
this job. In view of the above I assume that the early stainless
finisher is just that, a finisher not a tensioner.

I thought that the the year of your car Peetee should have the later rubber with plastic finisher and I always thought that these came in with the late 63 changeover when the later rear lights and tandem wipers came in along with the 1098cc engine.

I thought it was around '58 when they changed.... I've got the plastichrome rubber. Anyone got a book with a proper time-line in it that they can investigate??

I don't know if this refers to the plastic/chrome item but the book
says 'car number 1168813 (December 1966) new type of wind-
screen finisher'.............doesn't tally with my saloon which was
1965 and already had the plastic type. I assume that early and late
type windscreen rubbers both fit any one piece windscreen openings??
If so either type could turn up on any car from October 1956 when
the one piece came in?? Or am I missing something?

It's a fair bet that after all these years and owners there are many minors out there with screens and finishers that are different to their as new spec.

He fitted the trim
to the rubber and the rubber to the screen and then the lot to the car

So glad you mentioned this as i had come to the conclusion (armed with a bit more info now than I supplied this morning) that this is the way to go. The only problem I have is getting the screen rubber to stay on the glass as mentioned before - but I will try carefully bending the finisher strip ends towards each other first.
Thanks folks. It was nearly sledgehammer time a few hours ago. Now I feel empowered enough to have another go.
All I need now is a dry warm day.
Oh how much do I hate winter?

Oh how much do I hate winter?

As much as me with 'flu wanting to get my '52 shot blasted before I have to go back to work next week but I can't do any jobs 'cause it's too cold. Grrrr.

Same here Cam I was off from Christmas eve until today with similar symptons as yours and after 2 weeks its only just starting to ease off, and a few friends have had similar types of colds, this winters ones seem worse than usual.

Yeah our family has been infested with it! This strain does seem particularly bad and lingering.
I wanted to get SO much done over the 2 weeks I have been off work but have managed very little. That's the way it goes though...............

"Good news everybody!" [/ Futurama quote]

The screen is in and hopefully doing its job. Once I was confident I had the right collection of parts I phoned a local screen fitter and two blokes fitted it in about 20 mins. Having watched them work I'm darn certain I couldn't have done it myself anyway. That metal strip was a real pig to get in and stay in. I'm not to happy about the fit though. The outer lip is noticably proud around the upper corners - about a 2mm gap to the roof at worst. Is this likely to close up do you think?

Well its in, now you all you have to worry about is if it will leak!

:)
a

Peetee get someone with a garden hose to spray roung the windscreen while you are sitting in it that will soon show if its watertight or not.

Peetee wrote:"Good news everybody!" [/ Futurama quote]

Whaaaaa?

Nice one Pete!

Glad the screen is in, just have to wait and see if it settles. Mind you is it THAT noticable?

Tee Hee!
I only noticed the other day that Prof Farnsworth always enters with this line.
You know I'm really getting into that show now. It would be great if some rich soul would by me the complete box set DVDs.