Bodywork Part 3

This section describes restoration of the external parts of the body: doors, fenders, windshield, and so on.

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Contents

Door Restoration

I disassembled the doors. I wanted to go through the window and latch mechanisms: clean, derust, and lubricate them.

Doors usually rust at the bottom, where dirt and water accumulate. Both doors' bottoms were pretty good, but both had light rust near the top; that area probably didn't get painted well at the factory. The latch and window mechanisms were heavily galvanized, so they didn't have much rust. The doors have some kind of thick rectangular panel glued to the inside. I don't know its purpose--maybe vibration damping?

Like those of other cars, the doors have plastic curtains to shield the panels and internal parts from water, which enters via the window opening. Each door has a couple of them, one attached to the bottom of the window and (I think...) two hanging from the window opening. The curtains were pretty well shredded. Some kind of water shield is necessary, but replacing these as they were was not really an option.

The surface rust in the doors was treated in the usual manner: first, rust converting primer followed by a coat of rust encapsulator. I didn't repaint the doors' interiors beyond what was necessary for rust protection. More on door painting in the Paint section.

The left door had a rather deep dent, which had been pulled out minimally and then filled with quite a bit of body filler. I removed the body filler, along with the paint, so I could repair it a little better. The right door had only two small dings near the ridge where the trim piece was mounted.

The usual painting process: a couple coats of epoxy primer, then polyurethane primer, and a lot of sanding. I gave the doors three coats of color.

Now, the dilemma: do I reassemble the doors before color sanding, or sand and buff first, then reassemble? If I did the former, I would have to mask off the external parts for the sanding and buffing; then, working around certain areas, like the door handles, would be difficult. If the latter, a scratch during reassembly, not unlikely, would have required a lot of rework. I decided, finally, to do the sanding before assembly but leave the buffing until after assembly. That way, a scratch in reassembly would require only touch-up and a little sanding, much less work.

Below, the right door, wet sanded with 1000-, 1500-, and 2000-grit wet/dry sandpaper, but not buffed.

Here is the left door, similarly sanded. It has not been buffed yet. I am getting a little better at this; this door is actually a little shiny after only the wet sanding. You can see reflections in it.

The door pulls had a fair amount of rust in their mechanisms. Those parts were cleaned and replated (see below). The mounting screws were 10-32, but the other hardware was BA, an annoyance.

I cleaned the window regulator mechanisms in detergent and solvent. They showed little wear, so I expected them to work well. I replaced the leather bushings, at the window-attachment pivots, with teflon. There was a little light rust on the springs, which I left alone. I couldn't see it causing any problems, but trying to fix it in some way might.

I didn't notice this until I had installed the left regulator, but an arm was clearly bent. Once it was in place, the window was cocked in its tracks; until I got a good look at the arms, I couldn't figure out why. I removed, straightened, and reinstalled it; then all was well.

All the door mechanical parts were relubricated when they were installed.

The latches were cleaned in the same manner.

I decided to replate the visible parts, the covers and the locating pins. I had to drill out two swaged posts, then drill and tap them for screws. Below, the finished latches.

They are still not very pretty, but they are largely invisible and should work well.

Below are the mechanisms that allow the inner door handles to open or lock the doors. They were in good condition and didn't need any special attention beyond cleaning and lubrication.

The window tracks' felt was completely worn off. The time-honored way to restore them is to use the fuzzy half of self-adhesive Velcro. I cut it into 0.3" wide strips, each about two inches longer than the tracks. To help keep it in place, I wrapped the ends of the Velcro around the ends of the tracks. Even then, those ends came loose in a couple places, so I glued them with a dab of trim adhesive.

I partially assembled the right door and window so I could use it to check the angle of the windshield frame. The frame was adjustable but couldn't be readjusted after the dashboard was assembled, as the metal backup piece blocked the windshield mounting screws. I had to get it right before going further with the interior. More on that later in this page.

I continued to assemble the right door. Below, the mechanical part is complete. As stated in the Paint section, there was no point in repainting the door's interior (except to treat some rusty parts), and I liked the idea of allowing some original paint to remain, so there would be a record of the car's original color.

Here is a view of the restored latch and mechanical parts from the inside and, in the second picture, the external parts.

I mounted the restored mating parts of the latch on the body.

Finally, the door: painted, waxed, and with all the mechanical stuff installed and working.

The left door was painted and assembled in the same way. Here are both, mounted on the car and roughly adjusted.

One of the check straps was broken, so I bought two new ones. The usual problem: the new ones didn't fit. You can see that the "ears" of the spring pieces were too long; they interfered with the door post and prevented the door from opening all the way. The problem was easy to fix; I just put the new straps into a vise and bent their ears so they were flatter. Not a big problem, but, still, it should not have been necessary.

I installed the new straps and promptly broke the piece riveted to the body of the car that holds the door open. I suppose it would be possible to fabricate an identical piece, but it would require tools that I don't have. I tried to do that nonetheless, drilled out the rivets and fabricated a new piece from sheet metal stock, but it also broke. Finally, I machined a replacement from a small piece of aluminum. That gave me a billet door holder, probably the only one in existence.

That one lasted about a year before it broke. My replacement is shown below; It is made of 18-gauge steel, welded to a couple of 8-32 screws. It seems solid, and I'm optimistic that it will last.

Door Hinge Restoration

Door hinges on a fifty-year-old car are likely to be worn or rusty. Mine had rusted to the point where the central hinge piece was seized to the pin, where it should have rotated, and the pin's ends were rotating in the mounting ears, where they should have been fixed. It seemed clear that the hinges would wear quickly that way and become loose. Then, the door would no longer close the way it should.

Restoring TR door hinges seems to be a perpetual problem, especially if they are rusted together, as mine were. It is very difficult to press out rusted pins, and since the pins are a hard steel alloy, they're tough to drill. Some people have had success loosening them with heat from a propane torch, but that's risky and a last option for me. New hinges are available, but they cost $40 each, and, like all replacement parts, their quality is unknown. It's worth some effort to restore the old ones.

After wire-brushing off the old paint, I soaked the door hinges in phosphoric acid. The acid removed the rust and created an iron phosphate coating, which resisted further rust formation and provided a good surface for paint.

I ground off the ends of the pin and drilled out the parts that fit into the mounting ears. A carbide drill was essential.

Once the ends of the pin were removed, or mostly so, it was easy to separate the two halves of the hinge. I just set the hinge on my vise and whacked it with a hammer. This sounds brutal, but it didn't damage the hinge; the remaining bits of the pin sheared off easily.

The original pin was 5/16 inch in diameter, or 0.313 inches. While the pin may have fit precisely when the hinge was new, rust and wear had enlarged the hole in the hinge piece, so a new 5/16-inch pin would have been loose. Therefore, restoring the hinge required reaming it to a larger diameter and using an oversize pin. Reaming the hole also made it smoother and more uniform in diameter.

I made a new pin, 0.326-0.327 diameter, with a 0.335-0.336 section at one end, so it could be press fit into one of the ears. The pin was machined from 3/8-inch steel bar. It would have been easier to use a hardened dowel pin, but they are hard to find in diameters other than 5/16 or 3/8. Some people restore these hinges by pressing 5/16 ID sintered bronze bearings into them, but I was concerned they might not wear acceptably with the load of the heavy door on them.

I drilled out the old pin with a succession of carbide drills, finishing with a 5/16 drill. I then passed a 0.328 reamer through the hole; that gave me 1-2 mils clearance, which resulted in smooth operation with no perceptible looseness. To drill the hinge accurately, it was essential to mount it so that the hole was precisely perpendicular to the drill press' baseplate. I used a machinist's square to ensure perpendicularity.

I reamed the holes in the mounting ears, one to 0.325 and the other to 0.333. The pin is inserted through the 0.333 hole; its 0.326 dia end then is press fit into the 0.325 hole, and the 0.336 dia section is a tight press fit into the 0.333.

Below is a set of finished pieces and a finished hinge. It moves smoothly and has no discernible looseness.

Finally, a pair of hinges, primed and painted.

Door Handles

The original handles looked pretty dull at first, but a little buffing and polishing brought the chrome back to life. I decided to reuse them.

For reasons explained in the Trunk Lid section, below, I bought a set of matched lock cylinders. As aftermarket TR parts go, they weren't half bad; actually, only about a third bad.

The internal parts of the locks are not interchangeable; they are mirror images on the two sides of the car, and the parts for one side cannot be used on the opposite side. Fortunately, I had marked some of them at disassembly, which helped with reassembly, but the new lock cylinders were not similarly marked, and I lost the lock-plate markings when I replated them. With some effort, I figured out what went together and marked the pieces again.

Like many of the door parts, the inner plate, shown above on the left, was slightly oxidized, but its galvanized surface was solid. No need to mess with it.

The hexagonal piece on the right, in the picture below, should slide freely in the lock cylinder. Often it binds, probably because of tight tolerances and small dimensional errors. This one was pretty bad; it required a fair amount of work with a fine file to get it to fit correctly.

One of the springs that return the key to center when you lock or unlock the door was badly rusted and broke when I removed it. I was able to make a new spring, however, as shown below. I've made springs before, not always with success, but this one came out well.

The flathead screws for the inner plate and the lock-adjusting screw were BA-standard fasteners. I redrilled and tapped the holes for UNF. Other screws, such as the handle's mounting screws, were UNF. Go figure.

Once I buffed and polished them, the door-handle bodies looked good. Below, the finished door handles.

Trunk Lid and Edge Seal

Trunk Lid Repairs

The trunk lid required a lot of work, as it had been damaged in the past and subjected to the usual, marginally competent repair. It probably would have been better simply to buy a good used one, as they are easy to find and not terribly expensive. But, for better or worse, I restored the original one. It required a lot of work.

The lid had the usual rust in its bottom edge, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. The stiffening frame had only minor surface rust. The lock-mounting screws were rusted to their nuts, so I had to drill them out; the frame bolts also were rusty, but, with some effort, I was able to remove them. The logos were held on with little clips, which came off easily.

The stiffening piece at the lower edge of the lid was held in place by the folded lip and a couple of spot welds. Once I found those welds and drilled them out, the stiffener was easy to remove. The trunk apparently was painted after this piece was installed, so its back, and the lower edge of the lid, remained bare metal, vulnerable to rust. No seam sealer was used, even though this is one place where it could have done a lot of good.

The rust in the bend is loose oxide, which fell from the lid's edge. It's not rust in the bend, itself.

There were so many layers of old paint on the lid that it was hard to count them. On the inside of the trunk lid, there was only red-lead primer, gray primer, and original paint. On the outside (first picture, below), there was clear evidence that the car was repainted: the original paint layers, a layer of gray primer, some kind of yellow primer (or maybe sealer?), and white paint. On parts of the trunk lid (second picture), I could find evidence of all the above, plus one more layer of gray primer, some kind of blue primer or sealer, and a red primer that looked like red lead, but clearly was not the original. Also body filler. Plenty of that.

I stripped the lid with a polycarbide disk. In places, I found rust under body filler, so I removed all the filler. (Who on earth applies body filler over rust? Lots of people, apparently.) I also hammered out some of the dents a bit more to flatten them and minimize use of filler. It looked like someone had used a pickaxe to repair the largest dent. Not much to do but flatten it as best I could and fill the remaining dents.

I repaired the lower-edge piece, cutting out and replacing the rusted bits in the usual manner. I wire-brushed the rusted areas and coated them with rust converter and rust encapsulator, masking off the old spot welds so the piece could be welded back into place (left picture, below). With the welding finished (right picture), I bent the lip back, hammered it flat, added a couple tack welds for security, and ran a bead of seam sealer along the upper edge. That should have been done at the factory!

Finally, body filler. Below, the first application of filler, not yet sanded.

Getting an even surface required several applications of body filler with intermediate sanding. Very tedious, but eventually it was ready for paint.

The trunk lid was the first part of the body that I painted, color-sanded, and buffed. It took a little work to get it right, but eventually I was happy with the result. See the paint page for the continuing story of its restoration.

Trunk Lid Assembly

I disassembled the trunk latch, replated the parts, and put it back together. I also replated the mating part of the latch, the part mounted on the car's body.

I bought a new handle, as the old one was in bad condition and I could not remove the lock cylinder. New handles come with a new cylinder, testimony to the fact that the lock cylinder probably cannot be removed without ruining it. So, I was facing a situation where I would need at least two keys to use the car. The door locks, though, were already different from the ignition key, so I would either have to use three keys, or re-key either the doors or ignition. (I never even looked at the glove-box latch!) It seemed time to replace the whole lot, so I bought a matched lock set, which included the trunk handle.

I reused the original letters after buffing and polishing them. I also bought new hinges; cheaper than replating the old ones. Reassembling the trunk lid was straightforward.

Trunk Edge Seal

Installing the seal was pretty simple; I just applied trim adhesive and clamped it in place. The Roadster Factory provides a good set of instructions for installing the trunk seal, but they don't explain anything I couldn't have figured out myself. The trick was to put adhesive on the entire length of the gasket, not just a few places, and to clamp it so no part lifted and prevented the adhesive from sticking. That required a lot of clamps, more than I had, so I just did a section at a time.

The gasket looked good, but at first it seemed too thick or too stiff; it was difficult to close the lid completely. This appears to be a common problem with the gaskets now available. Eventually I found that the latch hook also was too far rearward and was scraping on the body of the mating piece. I shimmed it forward a little, and with a little extra force on the gasket, I was able to close the lid successfully.

TR4s and 4As have a panel that closes off the fuel tank area from the trunk. It's a simple, flat panel, and should be easy to fabricate, but every home-made one I've seen (including the one on the car when I bought it) has not looked good. So, I bought one and soon regretted it. The mounting holes were not even remotely close to the mating holes in the body; I had to enlarge them significantly. I also had to trim the upper corners of the panel, as they interfered with parts of the body. Typical experience with modern replacement parts and, frankly, I expected something like this. Still, it was annoying.

Grille and Front End

The grille had been modified in the past by one or two minor hits in the front. It needed a little unbending and replacement of missing upper mounting tabs. I straightened the grille and fabricated new tabs.

I installed my restored turn signal lamps onto the car and mounted the grille, bumper supports, and bumper. At that point, the front end was complete.

The car had no front bumper when I received it. The one in the pictures is new; like most aftermarket parts, it required a bit of persuasion to fit properly.

Front Fender Installation

Painting the front fenders was straightforward. They needed a little dent repair (or, more correctly, re-repair), but nothing major.

I had repainted the panels in the front wheel well quite a while previously; now it was time to install them and their rubber seals. I used trim adhesive to attach the seals, not the clips that the factory used (which are still available). I think this practice provides a better fit and reduces the damage to both the seals and panels. Below, the painted panels; the right-side seal, glued and clamped; and the finished left-side panel.

Installing the fenders was largely straightforward. The only tricky part was the installation of the upper trim piece. It is held in place by flat tabs, which are normally pinched between the fender and car body. However, even minor irregularities in the body surface prevent the tabs from being pinched properly; then, the trim won't stay in place. Locating the tabs near the mounting screws helped, as did folding them over so they were a little thicker.

The fenders originally were held on by a strange kind of flathead screw, which looked like a very coarse metal screw. It screwed into speednuts on the fender. I replaced those screws with 1/4-20 stainless-steel dome-head screws, like a flathead but not so flat. They worked well and looked nice.

I installed the right front fender as well. It was a little tricky, as I had to rehang the door to prevent it from contacting the rear edge of the fender.

At this point, there was only one body part left to install: the hood (or bonnet, to you of the British persuasion).

Rear Fender and Bumper Installation

The rear fenders were stripped and painted in the usual manner. They didn't require a lot of bodywork, just the repair of a couple cracks, one poorly repaired dent, and, as usual, a few minor dings.

Getting everything to line up was tricky, especially at the tail light, where there wasn't much room for error. Below, the tail-light end of the right rear fender after the first installation attempt.

I found it necessary to clamp the fenders' edges tight against the body with vise-grip pliers while tightening their mounting bolts. The bolts themselves were only marginally accessible, especially the rearmost one, and I had to loosen and retighten many of them several times before I was satisfied with the fit. The job is almost as little fun as installing the windshield glass.

Once installed, though, the fenders, with their tail lights, looked nice.

I had the rear bumper and overriders repaired and replated. Installing them was not difficult, but it took some concentration; they were unwieldy and it took some care to avoid scratching either the bumpers or the car. The new license-plate lights I bought didn't fit well. Typical.

Many pieces of the mounting hardware did not fit well, even though they seemed undamaged. I found it best to install everything with very loose screws, then to tighten the screws gradually, allowing the pieces to find their own positions.

Below, the finished installation.

Hood

Or, what some people call the bonnet.

Hood Repairs

The hood itself wasn't too bad. It had some rust in the usual places, especially along the structural cross members, where it wasn't well painted. The hood also had a small kink forward of the rear stiffener; this is a known weak point in TR4/4A hoods.

There was felt under the longitudinal and lateral stiffeners, which held moisture and contributed to rust. If you're a 1960s auto designer, it's probably easy to convince yourself that the underside of the hood can't get wet. But it can.

The attachment bolts for the hinges thread into captured nuts in the forward cross member. One of them had come loose; I had to saw the bolt to remove the hinge.

Now, how to repair the hinge attachment? After some thought, I decided to cut out the entire panel, weld in a new nut, and replace it. The hole left from the original nut was too large for an ordinary 5/16 UNF nut, so I first welded a washer onto the panel to serve as a mounting surface for the nut. I then welded in the nut, along with a vertical piece that was cut when I removed the panel. I added a couple welds to strengthen the existing nuts, which merely had been press-fit into their holes.

Replacing the panel required welding across the uncomfortably wide gap left by the saw; the result was, inevitably, a large weld. Below, the panel has been welded and the welds ground down. As usual, the camera made the ground-down welds look much uglier than they really were, but the finished and painted panel looks good, I think. In any case, it's underneath the hinge, so its appearance doesn't matter much.

Fortunately, the location of the holes is not critical, as the mating holes in the hinge are oversize, allowing plenty of room for adjustment.

I cleaned the hood with my power washer, blew off most of the water with compressed air, and left it in the sun to dry completely.

I stripped the paint from both sides of the hood with polycarbide disks and touched up the rusty areas with rust encapsulator (the black areas). I also sprayed some gray weld-through primer onto the areas where reinforcements were later attached. I found a little repaired damage in the front edge of the hood.

The kinked part of the hood was so weak that I could straighten it by hand. Clearly, it needed reinforcement. I made a pair of reinforcement pieces, one for each side, from sheet steel. This is a common way to reinforce that area. Since I wouldn't be able to paint under the reinforcements, I sprayed the undersides and the mating hood surfaces with weld-through primer.

Below, the reinforcements have been welded into place and the welds ground down. Welding through the "weld-though"primer was frustrating. I found it difficult to get a nice weld; the resulting weld was adequate but ugly, with a lot of spatter. The second picture shows the top side of the hood; can't say I didn't get good weld penetration! I ground the bumps flat and spread a little body filler on the area.

Once they were painted, the finished reinforcements looked OK. In any case, they're on the underside of the hood, so their appearance doesn't really matter much.

The hood had a few dings that I hammered out and smoothed with body filler. A couple of them came up from the underside, probably because the hood was slammed down with a tool on top of the engine.

As with the other body panels, I applied filler to any area that was even a little low, then sanded it smooth. Some areas required several applications before I got it the way I wanted it.

With the completion of these repairs, the hood was ready for paint. The story of the hood restoration continues on the paint page.

Hood Installation

I installed the logo and letters before mounting the hood on the car. I also mounted the hinges ahead of installation, but it might have been better to install them after the hood was in place. Either way, it was necessary to remove the headlight "buckets" for access to the hinge bolts.

The hood is not very heavy; two people can handle it easily. It's a little too awkward to install single-handedly, so I used my shop crane.

Installing and adjusting the hood was almost a full day's work.

I installed the repainted prop rod, rubber bumpers, the latch pin (the thingy with the spring), and probably a couple other things associated with the hood that I've forgotten. I don't know what that rubber block in the prop rod assembly is for, but it's part of the car, so I replaced it. I also added a strip of rubber so that the rod won't rattle when the hood is closed.

Hood Latch

The hood latch was stripped and epoxy primed in the usual manner. I didn't like the stupid little clip that held the release cable, so I made a more substantial mount from a block of aluminum.

Below, the hood latch, painted, assembled, and installed. That contraption attached to its side is an emergency hood release, used if (when?) the hood-release cable breaks or comes loose.

The design of the emergency hood release is less than perfect; if the actuating rod is pulled too far, the lever can slip off the part of the latch it operates. To avoid this, I made two modifications: (1) I added the aluminum block clamped to the actuating rod, visible in the picture below, and (2) I machined the lever's mounting bushing a little thinner. The first limits the lever's travel, and the second removes some slop from its mounting, allowing it to move farther without slipping off the latch.

Vent Lid

The vent lid (the cover over the fresh-air intake) is frequently rusted, and replacements are only sporadically available. Mine had some rust, and I would have replaced it, but I couldn't find a used one in better shape.

The lid was cemented in some way to a U-shaped bracket, and it seemed impossible to remove it. That made it impossible to fix the rust by welding in new metal, so the only option was to remove the rust by abrasive blasting and to apply body filler over the whole part. I figured that this approach was acceptable, as the layer of body filler was still very thin. I didn't take off all the old paint, as most of it was already gone, and the remaining (original) paint helped to level the surface.

Rust forms in the vent lid when water gets between the lid and bracket. To avoid that, I ran a goodly bead of seam sealer around the bracket's edge. Then I epoxy-primed both sides.

While painting the lid was straightforward, installing it was not. I spent an inordinate amount of time on it. The problem was the ill-fitting gasket. When the lid was closed, the gasket held it open. It looked really stupid.

I tried trimming the thick, inner part of the gasket, but that wasn't enough; the thinner, outer part stuck out and prevented the lid from closing. In the end, I cut both parts off, and the lid closed acceptably, although probably with an imperfect seal.

I think I could have left this gasket off. Its purpose, I assume, is to seal against drafts, but even without the gasket, I doubt that would be a problem. It certainly isn't intended to seal against rainwater, as the vent can be open in the rain, and the plenum is designed to divert any water that enters.

Windshield Frame

I already knew that the windshield frame had some rust, but, with the trim off, I found it to be much worse than I had thought. At first it looked hopeless; I considered getting a good used one, but all the used frames I found were nearly as bad. I decided to try to fix it. In the end, it looked good, I had no problems fitting it to the body, and the windshield glass went in without a hitch.

I removed the windshield glass by cutting the seal with a utility knife. To remove the glued-on vinyl pieces, I heated them with a heat gun, which softened the glue, and pulled and scraped them off. They came off easily that way.

The upper aluminum trim piece was held on by pop rivets, which I drilled out, and some kind of glue or filler, which broke loose fairly easily. I later noticed that the glue softened easily with heat; if I ever do this again, that might be a good way to remove it.

I cut and ground off the rusty pieces, then wire-brushed the frame to remove as much rust as I could.

I rebuilt one side at a time. I planned to fabricate the lower channel in several pieces, as I didn't have equipment to do anything more complicated. Since I was not completely sure that the frame was restorable, I started on the right side, as its condition was worse; if I could restore that side, I figured, restoring the other would certainly be possible.

Parts of the flange (i.e., the lip that the windshield seal fits over) were rusted away. To replace them, I made paper templates, cut the flange pieces out of 20-gauge sheet steel, welded them into place, and finally sprayed a coat of weld-through primer. I also replaced a plate on the inside of the right vertical rail.

The lower part of the bottom frame rail is inside the windshield-to-body gasket; the upper side is under a vinyl cover. Neither need to be perfectly reproduced. Using a paper template, I cut a piece to fit the upper part of the rail and welded it into place with stitch welds. I didn't fill the entire joint, as it just wasn't necessary.

Here is a simple flange repair on the outside of the right-side, vertical rail. The usual process.

The left side was treated similarly. You can see a cutout in the vertical rail for another rust repair.

I fabricated two new mounting tabs for the windshield frame; only the central one had not rusted off. Also, in the picture below, a new piece is welded into the vertical rail.

Since the original metal supporting the tabs had disappeared into a pile of rust, locating the tabs was tricky. I had to mount the windshield on the car, mark the locations, remove the windshield, weld them into place, and hope that I got it right. I then installed the windshield to check the fit.

Fortunately, I had saved the windshield-to-body gasket; it must be in place when the tabs are fitted. The gasket is ~1/4 inch thick and the frame mounting posts are at an angle to the top surface of the dash. That moves the hole locations a little toward the rear. If you try to locate the holes without the gasket in place, they will be ~3/16 inch too far rearward when the gasket is installed.

The tabs were correct, right over their mating holes in the dashboard.

Trial fitting the frame helped to ensure that everything was done right. At the time, I didn't quite appreciate how easy it would be to get a dimension just a little off, so the glass wouldn't fit into the frame or the frame wouldn't fit onto the car. The windshield frame is actually a precision piece of bodywork.

I sanded off the rest of the old paint, applied a coat of body filler to the new pieces, then primed the frame with epoxy and polyurethane primers. After considerable sanding, I gave it three coats of color.

Windshield Installation

Frame

With the windshield frame repaired, the task was to mount the frame onto the car and to install the glass into the frame. This job has a well-earned reputation as one of the nastier ones in restoring a TR.

I started by trial-fitting the frame into its mounting brackets. There is a little room for adjusting the mounts, so the frame sits uniformly on the top of the car's body; the windows, when raised, meet the door seal; and the convertible top fits properly. The brackets must be installed and adjusted before the dashboard is installed, as the lower mounting screw, visible in the right picture below, is not accessible with the dash in place.

Before installing the glass, it was necessary to glue the vinyl trim to the frame, as the windshield seal fit over the trim; before installing the trim, the speednuts for the sun visors and rear-view mirror had to be inserted.

Gluing the trim solidly was important, as any material sticking out from the frame's windshield-mounting flange would interfere with the installation of the glass. I attached the trim with spray adhesive and clamped it with all the clamps I had; I would have used more if I'd had them. It seemed best to install the long pieces first.

The side pieces didn't fit as well. They required quite a lot of clamping and, even then, it was difficult to get them glued flat to the flange.

I used 3M Super 77 adhesive to attach the trim. It held well, for the most part, but it gave only a minute or so of working time. It didn't hold well when the glued piece experienced continuous tension, so the part along the windshield-gasket flange eventually loosened. I reglued the loose areas with 3M trim adhesive and clamped it. That worked much better.

With the trim on, I was ready to install the windshield frame. Since I had already trial-fit it and adjusted the mounts, it slipped in easily. I used the string trick to get the edges of the windshield-to-body gasket out where they belonged: lace a length of heavy string under the gasket, pull it out, and it takes the edge of the gasket with it.

As I noted in the dashboard installation section, the windshield frame must be installed and aligned ahead of the dashboard, as two of the frame's mounting bolts are inaccessible with the dash in place. Also, a door and window must be installed to check the alignment of the window edge with the windshield frame. I had suspected that it was not right, and when I finally got a door installed and leveled, those suspicions were confirmed (first picture, below). I loosened the windshield clamps, wiggled the windshield a bit, and retightened it. It seemed easy to get it aligned (second picture).

It eventually became clear that the alignment still wasn't correct. In order to get it right, I installed the right door permanently (which, by then, had been completed) and did quite a bit of finagling. I never got it as good as I would have liked, but, in the end, it was acceptable.

Windshield Glass

Now, the final trauma in a generally unsatisfying experience: windshield-glass installation, reputed, with justification, to be one of the most difficult and thankless jobs in working on a TR4A.

The existing windshield glass appeared to be original and, except for a couple small areas of delamination near the edges, in good shape. New windshield glass was available, and not too expensive, but I had been told that the new glass didn't fit the frame well. Based on my experience with other new parts, that wasn't a surprise. I decided to reuse the old glass.

The first step was to install the seal. I had to puzzle a bit over the seal's orientation, as it had two grooves and two rubber flaps, and their use was not immediately clear. I eventually determined that the deeper groove was for the glass and the shallower one was for the trim. The large flap covered the gap between the seal and windshield frame, and the smaller one fit over the frame's flange, locking the glass into the frame. As long as the seal is installed with the glass in the deeper groove and the shallow one outside, it is correct.

Getting the seal onto the glass was not easy. I found it easiest if I bent the unmounted part perpendicular to the edge of the glass and rolled it into place. A fair amount of soapy water helped, too.

I again used the string trick, in which a string is inserted into the windshield seal, the windshield is located on the frame, and the seal is pulled into position by withdrawing the string. Sounds much easier than it is.

The installation process involved a lot of pulling, pushing and spraying soapy water everywhere (which made an ungodly mess in the car). For most of the process, it seemed that the window and seal could not possibly fit into the frame, but with each push or pull, it went in a little farther. Then, finally, and without ceremony, it was in.

I didn't take any pictures of the process, as I had my hands full. If you are interested in more about how this is done, there are a couple good videos on YouTube (which make the process look much easier than most of us find it to be).

The last step was to install the trim piece. The slot it fit into was a little tight, but some soapy water and thumping with the heel of a hand got it into place. The original trim was aluminum; new parts are plastic, and reputedly they shrink over time. I can't imagine that they shrink very much, but I still cut the trim as long as possible, so the ends almost touched. The piece that slides over the ends, to join them, is about two inches long; it should allow for a fair amount of shrinkage, if that does indeed occur.

People will tell you that this trim piece has a functional, as well as cosmetic, purpose: it spreads the windshield seal slightly, tightening it in the frame. I doubt that this idea is valid. The trim doesn't spread the seal very much, and, with or without the trim, that windshield certainly isn't going anywhere that the car doesn't go. I think you could get by just fine without it, and many people, I think, would like the all-black appearance.

In retrospect, I was extraordinarily lucky that everything fit as well as it did. The windshield frame required extensive rust repair, and it would have been easy to get a dimension off, so the windshield wouldn't fit the car or the glass wouldn't fit the frame. Decent used frames are not terribly expensive, and it probably would have been better simply to replace it.