Fansher wrote:
> The PO of my TR4 ran the windshield wipers with no blades attached. Thus
> there are some significant scratches to the windshield. Also a few to the
> drivers window from over zealous sanding during painting. Any idea how to
> remove these scratches? Thanks in advance
>
> Tom Fansher
> Deltona, FL
> 1961 TR3 TS76120L
> 1963 TR4 CT7966LO
Very shallow scratches can be polished out using an opticians polishing
cloth. You could try a wet cloth charged with red rouge or cerium oxide. If
you opt for red rouge, remove the glass and do it outside. Red rouge is
basically rust and will stain everything.
If the scratches are substantial, you really can't polish them out. To
remove a scratch, you have to remove all the glass surrounding the scratch.
This causes two problems.
The first problem is optical. If localize the polishing you are creating a
hole in the glass forming a concaved lens. Windshield wiper scratches tend
to be very large and in your line of signt. The only way to avoid the
optical problems is to polish the whole windshield to the same thickness,
damn near impossible.
The second problem is stuctural. Safety glass is really to pieces of
tempered glass laminated with a sheet of plastic in between. So, the actual
glass you would be polishing is half the windshield thickness. Tempered
glass is heat treated to deliberately introduce internal stresses. Any
significant remove of glass introduce structural weakness. In fact the glass
can shatter from the polishing alone.
Auto glass with holes drilled cost twice as much. This is because roughly,
every other one shatters from the stress release.
Personally, I would opt for a new windshield. If I remember correctly from a
past post, a new windshield can be found for less than $100.
The polishing process is very slow. To remove a deep scratch like a wiper
gouge could take days if not weeks.
Still you have to remove the old windshield to install the new windshield.
There's no reason you couldn't experiment on the old windshield before
ordering a new windshield.
If you do try polish the winshield, try to polish the scratch as a whole and
not piece by piece. Use long random strokes to get an overall smooth
polish. If you do attempt to polish the window, let us know your results. I
sure everyone with 30 year old glass could benefit.
Peter Thomas
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