ByronJ
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2012
- Messages
- 365
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Once you inspect a number of 80 series trucks you soon realise that bubbling of the paint around the front windscreen is a common problem. This was a puzzle to me as the paint on the 80 series is generally very well applied, My own cruiser (1991) had just a couple of places where there was a small amount of bubbling around the screen. As I had the truck in the garage to service the front axle I decided to take the windscreen out and treat the rust before it became a problem. I was rather surprised by what I found. I wish I had taken some pictures with the windscreen in place to show how minimal the problem seemed.
This is the top of the screen on the drivers side. A couple of things are immediately apparent from this shot:
- There are distinct lines where the paint from the roof ends and the paint on the inner frame for the windscreen begins
- there is rust all along that join although the only bubbling visible when the screen was in place was in the small area top right of the picture.
It appears that a frame to hold the windscreen is bonded onto the body shell. This joint is a weakness for water to penetrate and once into the joint it can work its way along and rust begins in this fault line.
This is a shot of the top of the screen on the passenger side.
Although there is rust all along the joint there is no bubbling of the paint as yet. In fact the rust line ran all along the top of the windscreen and about one third of the way down each side. Though paint bubbling was only visible in a few places.
I used a wire brush to remove the rust and the seam is exposed.
I found it difficult to get a decent picture under the energy saving bulbs and the flash just reflected on the wire-brushed steel but this is a reasonable compromise. The White strip at the top is masking tape and the joint between the roof of the body shell and the frame is running horizontally across the picture, just below centre.
Once I got back to bright metal I painted on of KuRust and finished with two coats of black hammerite. I applied the paint with a brush but immediately smoothed it over with a fine sponge. Make-up sponges are good for that...
Unfortunately before the second coat dried a load of dust (from my earlier grinding) blew down from the rafters and landed on the paint. I decided to put up with that for now.
Next time I would:
Put masking tape in position before removing the windscreen as the rubber does not cover the steel in a uniform manner - it varies over different sections.
After applying KuRust I would fill the joint with a fine filler so there are no edges for the paint to slide off.
Do the grinding off outside
.
This is the top of the screen on the drivers side. A couple of things are immediately apparent from this shot:
- There are distinct lines where the paint from the roof ends and the paint on the inner frame for the windscreen begins
- there is rust all along that join although the only bubbling visible when the screen was in place was in the small area top right of the picture.
It appears that a frame to hold the windscreen is bonded onto the body shell. This joint is a weakness for water to penetrate and once into the joint it can work its way along and rust begins in this fault line.
This is a shot of the top of the screen on the passenger side.
Although there is rust all along the joint there is no bubbling of the paint as yet. In fact the rust line ran all along the top of the windscreen and about one third of the way down each side. Though paint bubbling was only visible in a few places.
I used a wire brush to remove the rust and the seam is exposed.
I found it difficult to get a decent picture under the energy saving bulbs and the flash just reflected on the wire-brushed steel but this is a reasonable compromise. The White strip at the top is masking tape and the joint between the roof of the body shell and the frame is running horizontally across the picture, just below centre.
Once I got back to bright metal I painted on of KuRust and finished with two coats of black hammerite. I applied the paint with a brush but immediately smoothed it over with a fine sponge. Make-up sponges are good for that...
Unfortunately before the second coat dried a load of dust (from my earlier grinding) blew down from the rafters and landed on the paint. I decided to put up with that for now.
Next time I would:
Put masking tape in position before removing the windscreen as the rubber does not cover the steel in a uniform manner - it varies over different sections.
After applying KuRust I would fill the joint with a fine filler so there are no edges for the paint to slide off.
Do the grinding off outside
.
Last edited:
. To add some info relating to peoples comments:
