I've decided to do my long rides on Friday instead of Saturday so I'm not feeling that fatigue on Sunday morning. This morning I added 20% to my long ride from last week and the route included a couple of decent hills. I didn't have much of an average speed (yes, I checked the readout when I got home) but it went fine. Much beyond this distance, though, and I'll have to start carrying some food with me.
I also went to the eye dr. for my annual exam, which included dilating my eyes. It doesn't bother when he does it but I sure don't like the blurry vision and headache that lasts for several hours afterward.
Steve came over after work and helped me put in the fixed windows on the VW. We started with the rear quarters, then the back window, and finished off with the windshield. Easiest to trickiest. The VW forum includes lots of stories of broken windshields during the installation. It's unlike a glass install on U.S. cars and involves pounding on the glass from the outside while the person on the inside pulls a cord to get the lip of the weatherstripping to go over the car body's opening. Yeah, it's as scary as it sounds. The first three are the original Sekurit glass from the factory but the windshield is already replacement glass (not unusual), so if one was going to break I wanted it to be that one.
I have a video on the installation procedure and it looks pretty straightforward.
It isn't.
We got the back three in, but I've got some wrestling to do before they're right. The inside lip of the weatherstripping doesn't lay over the headliner material like it should and the outside lip is tucked under in places. I've got some puzzling to do to figure out how to fix those problems without scratching paint or tearing fabric.
The windshield - nope. Didn't happen. After about 15 minutes of trying the molding in the center of the weatherstripping snapped out - the molding that took hours to put in.
Bag it. Walk away. Go back to it another day with a fresh perspective and attitude.
So here I sit at 8:30, after dinner with Steve & Michelle, struggling to stay awake.
I'm old.
I don't care.
2 comments:
How much to pay a professional to install that windshield? Just a thought.
Mike
I'm half Swedish. That means stubborn. Not ready to give up yet, esp. since it doesn't install like a normal windshield. The typical professional will never have seen this arrangement.
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