Morris Minor Owners Club

Hi everyone

The Beast's windscreen is leaking - still leaking - after many hours with Captain Tolley's Creeping Crack Cure (stop sniggering at the back).

We're going to take out the silver strip to release the inner flange of the windscreen rubber so that we can put a bead of non-setting black windscreen sealant around it. So then we'll need to get the silver strip back in, for which we'll need one of those cunning diamond-shaped tools.

The good ones (from Frost et al) cost a fair bit of money, so I wondered if anyone had one they would be willing to lend us for a few days? We'd send it back registered post in immaculate condition as soon as we'd finished with it, honest injun.

Can anyone help?

wibble xx

you can bend a piece of wire to the shape you need and mount into the jaws of mole/vice grips it wont have the roller to push in the strip but you can push in yourself at a pinch and lubricate with what ever is your lube of choice ( ohh noo miss's)

There are plenty on ebay. If you want to get a 'premiuim quality' one with a roller similer to Frosts this one is £14.95 with same day dispatch: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Classic-Mini- ... 2a145d4321

But as already said you could make your own or buy a cheaper version - they would still do the job - and probably not worth spending a lot of money on one as it isn't a job that you'll need to do very often (hopefully!)

Thanks for your speedy replies, guys

I do know that its possible to do the job with bent wire etc, but as you say the roller is harder to mock up than the diamond wire, and I feel they probably help with what's a bit of a tricky job. As you say, Louise, it's not a job you need to do all that often, and I guess my question was not really about whether it's possible to contrive something myself to do the job, but whether anyone has one of the kosher tools which I could borrow

Thank you for the useful link

Well hopefully someone on here has one you can borrow but I guess it depends on how soon you need the job done. If you keep it garaged and don't venture out in the rain probably best to wait to see if someone can help with the request. Good luck with getting it sorted

Not garaged, no (I should be so lucky ) and leaving on the 27th for four weeks on the Western Isles. As you can imagine, this has concentrated my mind quite wonderfully on leakproofing the Beast before we leave

It would be best to remove the screen and rubber completely - clean away any old gunge - inspect the rubber carefully and renew if damaged - then refit with sealer of your choice, which shouldn't really be necessary...... And then refit the strip - a new one may be required. Bent wire tool worked well for me.

Thanks, bmc I'm following the advice of a chap who has worked a lot on classic car windscreens (he's a professional windscreen fitter). I don't at all fancy taking the whole windscreen out, as I saw how tricky it was to fit it when the professional chap came to replace it after the Beast was restored The rubber was new then and has leaked ever since, so I think it's unlikely to be a case of damage to the rubber, rather just a slightly irregular surround making it difficult for the rubber to seal to the metal nicely. It makes sense to me to loosen the rubber, clean away all gunge, and pipe round with sealant so as to fill up any little irregularities.

Do you know if the leak is from the glass side - or the body side?

I've not been able to find out - could be both - so I'll be sealing round both sides

It's the same old story - I have a 40 year old rubber that does not leak at all. The three new ones that I have fitted over the past six years have all leaked, despite the fact that the bodywork in all cases was perfect. It took loads of sealant plus several doses of good old Captain Tolly's to cure the leak. From experience, I would concentrate on the bottom edge and corners on the glass side and also the top edge between the roof and the seal. It's an often overlooked area, but rain runs into that gap and then down inside the rubber to appear at the bottom, making one think that it came in at the corner to start with. Good luck.

Thanks very much for your tips, simmitc

Ive got one of them, PM me

PMs exchanged - you're a star, Paul

Just thought I'd mention. I re-seated my screen rubber in the summer as I had a leak in the left hand corner, soaking the glove box. (I fitted a new gasket to the bonnet hinge as this was leaking too).

The leak wasn't over or under the rubber, but on glove box and the floor was soaked. Unfortunately, It took me ages to work out where the leak was coming from.
It turned out to be leaking between the seam underneath the screen. Unfortunately the water was dripping down the side and behind the 'kidney' shaped panel, which over time rusted a hole at the botton (the sill and a corner of the inner wing).

After removing the screen rubber, I found the water ingress was coming through between the two 'spot-welded' panels that make up the lip. Now I'm not sure what the correct fix for this is. I'm sure if you apply lots of sealant this will probably work.

In my case I cleaned and de-rusted all of the bottom seam, added a rust cure solution before sealing the top of the seam, along the whole length, using an epoxy glue. Thus far no leaks.

Thanks, daveyl - I'll look out for that I hope and trust that it isn't that in this case, because the windscreen rubber was installed following a bare-metal restoration (including a professional paint job) We will see!