serious windshield gasket problem. anyone else have this problem?

[william-theglassman]

its possible they didnt slip the antenna wire into its connection .seen that a lot.the self locking gasket is not better or worse than the insert one . just a little harder to use . it is for the early squares .73 and up .i couldnt tell you what year they were changed to lace ups. once installed one is as good as the other as far as looks ,and sealing up.a lot of folks like the chrome strip insert , i dont because the chrome always fades and ckacks up over a short peroid of time.i put a self locking one on my dads 74 .i had it laying around the shop for years and my supplier forgot to send me the other type so i made it work.i am not bragging or trying todiminish anyone else skill but i did it in about an hour by myself. they are not that big a deal. i will be doing one with the insert on a friends truck when he paints it soon .i will take some pics of the removal and reinstal and put them up .

[i8tokyo]

Originally Posted by william-theglassman

its possible they didnt slip the antenna wire into its connection .seen that a lot.the self locking gasket is not better or worse than the insert one . just a little harder to use . it is for the early squares .73 and up .i couldnt tell you what year they were changed to lace ups. once installed one is as good as the other as far as looks ,and sealing up.a lot of folks like the chrome strip insert , i dont because the chrome always fades and ckacks up over a short peroid of time.i put a self locking one on my dads 74 .i had it laying around the shop for years and my supplier forgot to send me the other type so i made it work.i am not bragging or trying todiminish anyone else skill but i did it in about an hour by myself. they are not that big a deal. i will be doing one with the insert on a friends truck when he paints it soon .i will take some pics of the removal and reinstal and put them up .

Thats what I like about this forum, you can learn so much from others experiences. My background has been speed and performance since 74'. I have very little along the lines of body/chassis/interior and such. But after joining this forum, and reading what others are doing, the fear factor went away. Nothing I can do that can't be undone for the most part and the tools to do it are typically somewhere in here. Thanks for your input. Hopefully they will figure it out next Saturday when I take it back in for the new gasket.

[Firebirdjones]

That is correct, the deluxe has the simulated chrome strip. On the squares (by the late 70's at least, and on my 79) it has that plastic chrome molded around the perimeter. Because of this, I have put off installing a new windshield for years because every glass company I have contacted say they can't install the rubber seals with the chrome strip, and I prefer to keep the truck as per factory, so I've put up with a nice big chip in the glass for years.

I ran into this issue with my 72 as well, which uses an actual stainless trim around the windshield (3 pieces) that is supposed to snap into a groove molded into the windshield rubber. The original windshield was hit by a rock last year pretty hard. Glass company tried for 15 minutes to talk me into a plain black windshield molding and I wouldn't do it, that's not how the CST's were built.
They reluctantly agreed to finally install the correct windshield molding with the molded groove for my stainless to snap in. Took 3 guys 4 hours to do it an it still wasn't right. A week later the 2 side stainless moldings flew out going down the highway. I"ve left it that way since as I don't want anyone else touching the truck, fed up with it. I wish now that I left the original windshield in it with the crack, at least it had the stainless around it and looked correct.

It's hard to find a good glass guy (surprising in AZ with all the busted windshields we get) and because of this I've been reluctant to fix my 79. Even though that truck should be easier, since the rubber comes with simulated chrome already on the rubber.

My only concern now after reading this thread is that with the rubber molding pictured above having so much slack,,,I'd be afraid it would crack that plastic simulated chrome,,,that stuff isn't all that flexible, and I haven't seen any suppliers carry it.