Winter is the time of year when hard pieces of ice get kicked up by the cars in front of you on the road and smash against the front of your pickup truck. Sometime, the ice is hard enough to crack the windshield to the point where you can have trouble seeing out of it. You need to replace the windshield to make driving around town safe again. Here is how you can replace a windshield on a pickup truck.
Step One: Remove Wiper Blades
There are plastic or rubber covers over the nuts holding the wiper blades to the truck. Lift up on the covers to remove them. Remove the nuts and lift up on the lower shaft of the wiper blades. The blades will slide off of the bolts.
Step Two: Remove Bottom Molding
At the base of the windshield is strip of molding with a grille in it. Remove the screws holding the molding in place. Open the hood so you can get at the bottom of the molding. Use a small prying tool to slip under the edge of the molding and force it up so you can remove it. Close the hood when you are done.
Step Three: Remove Weather Strip Molding
The weather strip molding is a thick piece of rubber that goes all the around the top and sides of the windshield. There should be a seam on the weather stripping at the bottom driver's side corner of the windshield. Pry the seam open with a hook tool that has a point on it that digs into the rubber so you can grab it. Grab one end of the weather stripping and pull it off of the windshield. The windshield will then lift right out.
Step Four: Clean Opening
There will typically be old glue left in the opening in the frame for the windshield. You need to remove this glue. Take a chisel or utility knife and scrape all the glue out of the opening. Vacuum up the mess, and then clean the opening with a glass cleaner.
Step Five: Prepare Opening For New Windshield
You will put new glue around the opening in the frame before you set the new windshield into position. In some cases, you might have exposed bare metal while you were scraping out the old glue. Take an adhesive primer and cover the bare metal before you apply the new glue.
Step Six: Put Molding On New Windshield
You should buy new weather strip molding for the replacement windshield. Take the molding and connect to the perimeter of the new windshield. The molding has a groove that slips over the outer edge of the windshield. Start at the bottom corner of the windshield and put the molding up along the side, over the top, and down the other side of the windshield.
Step Seven: Install New Windshield
A couple of small rubber blocks should come with the new windshield. The rubber blocks help to hold the windshield to the right height when you install it into the opening. Set the blocks into the bottom of the opening.
Place the new adhesive inside the perimeter of the windshield opening. Place a couple of suction cups on the windshield so you can carry it by grabbing the windshield itself. Set the windshield into the opening and press it down onto the adhesive.
Replace the bottom molding and the windshield wiper blades. Wait until the adhesive dries before you drive your truck on the open road.
If you still have questions or don't have time to replace your own windshield, contact companies that specialize in auto windshield replacement.
