I just went to get a new windshield for my XJ. They came out and told me they couldn't do it as the Pinchweld was entirely rusted through. Has anyone replaced these or know the process?

 

You would have to pull the glass that is currently in there, and clean all of the old adhesive out of the window sill to really know the extent of the damage. I, personally, would need to see pics to be able to give you any clear ideas about it being worth fixing or not.

Also, I moved this to tech, this is not a fab related thread.

 

Oops, sorry. I had it in Fab since I assumed I was going to have to fab a new pinchweld. To give you an idea, I pulled the headliner out and the pinchweld is rusted completely through to the other side, it's damn near completely gone.

Is there any solution to that? Could I just clean the old stuff out and weld in or bondo a new Pinchweld? My other thought was, to do a chop top like this



and then get that whole windshield piece off a salvage and weld it on driectly to the Roll Bar and frame. I'm not sure how structurally sounds that would be though...

 

First it's a pinchweld not a pinchwell.
Now. the windshield frame area is technically a structural part of the vehicle. Looking at your pic I would go to a JY and cut the windshield frame off at belt line on the door (you wold have a large U shape) and weld that in. Repairing it is quite a chore because the cancer will be worse once you get the windshield out etc. When I managed bodyshops we would use light gauge angle most often if the situation wasn't too dire. but it often got into the roof. Side bar, we once took a chunk of window frame off a Taurus wagon qtr panel when we needed to repair the windshield frame. nearly a perfect fit.

 

Excellent, thanks for your input. Yeah, the guy at the shop said that if they pulled the windshield the entire upper pinchweld would come out along with parts of the roof. I'm throwing the idea around in my head of maybe trying to come up with a solution that would give me a windshield with the option of folding down like on the wranglers. I figure if I'm going to do this I might as well go all out.

My next door neighbor is a welder so I'm going to talk to him about this too.

 

sounds cool, if you do that, you better do a build thread on it so we can all praise it and pick it apart. (haha)