Glass Removal

After removing most of the interior, the wiring, and cleaning out the engine compartment the next major step was removing the front windshield and rear window.  Not only was the front one cracked (thus needing replacement), but the seals were long gone and as part of the overall project they had to come out.



All of the other glass in the car was removed by me a while back.  This included the door glass on both sides as well as the smaller rear quarter windows.  I have extras of each from previous cars I've owned that I've kept aside over the years.

I knew the weatherstripping on the front windshield was gone.  Partly due to age, but also just sitting in the sun for long periods of time ends up shrinking and cracking the seal over time.  This car was no exception.  Although you couldn't see the seal due to the magic of the windshield trim, I knew it was bad as the car had been getting water on the passenger side floors for a while.  There was no other evidence of leaking anywhere other than the windshield.  The fresh air vents weren't obstructed, and there is zero sign of water damage around them.

trim removal 'tools'

Due to the age of the car and it's leaking I was concerned about the lower corners of both windows having rusted completely out.  If that ended up being the case, it'd mean a LOT more work to correct.

The first step in removing both of these windows is to remove the trim around them.  There are multiple pieces both front and back that surround the windows. They are held in place by little clips that are secured to the body next to the weather strip via little posts that are part of overall body of the car.  You can simply pry the trim up off the car, but it's made up of very thin metal and bends easily.  The trim on this particular Celica was in remarkable shape and bending it was not high on my 'to-do' list.  It's also getting harder to find replacement pieces of the trim (though the clips are still available_.

This trim is very similar to trim on Chevrolet cars of the same approximate years.  I'm not sure about other makes as I haven't worked around them as much.  There are a myriad of videos out on the internet on removing trim from older cars, and I found those to be very useful here.  Take a look on YouTube and you'll be amazed at what you find!

trim clips

The basic idea is to pry up the trim at the windshield side.  Then using a special tool (or a pick) you slide it up the trim looking for those clips.  I found my trim tool and picks at Harbor Freight.  Once you find one, you grab it with the tool and pull it toward the windshield.  This pries the clip off of the trim and releases it.  With all of the dirt and water over the years, some of the clips on the Celica were buried and/or rusted a bit so it made for a fun treasure hunt to locate them.

Once all of the trim has been removed, you can get a good look at the weather strip surrounding the glass.  As I had suspected, it was deteriorated pretty bad.  There were several spots in the trim where you could see all the way into the car and even easily put a screwdriver shank through it!  I got a little over excited about removing it, so didn't get a lot of good pictures of that piece.

Crack in seal

The weatherstrip on these actually surrounds the glass, then is pried into place around the pinch welds that make up the windshields frame on the body of the car (unlike some that just sit flat on the body and rely on the trim to hold it in place).  To remove it, the body manual I found on retrojdm.com mentioned prying the weatherstripping away from the pinch weld from the inside of the car starting at the top.  Before I did this however, I had to remove as much of the old sealant as possible to try to free up the windshield. That stuff is still sticky as hell and gets EVERYWHERE.  Using the pick helped a lot.

After prying and peeling as much of that away as possible, you just get in there and push!  I started with the front windsheild as it was already cracked.  I figured that way I could 'learn' before I attempted to remove the rear window that was in pristine condition (and still had defrost in it!).

As I suspected, the front windshield cracked a bit more, but finally gave way and came out in one piece.  I took a bit more time on the rear window and was able to release it from it's prison without damaging it a bit.  Believe me, I did quite the happy dance when that thing came out unscathed.

To my utter astonishment (and absolute relief), there was only very minor surface rust at all four of the bottom corners (two front, two back).  So far the only rust THROUGH the car has been in the floors only *whew*.



I had some scrap lumber sitting around so made a stand to hold all the glass until I could get back to it.  I also up-armored around it with a lot of the storage containers I've been putting parts in so it's protected as much as possible.

'storage'

I've been able to find new weatherstrip for these in more than one place, so putting it back in when the time comes shouldn't be too big a problem.  That said, I'm still going to rely on the services of trained professionals to do it.  Doing it myself would not be good in the event something bad happened.