AUSTIN 7 (PROFESSIONAL) WINDSCREEN REPLACEMENT
The windscreen on my Box was
cracked. and on the phone, RH Insurance recommended National Windscreens. I gave
them a ring and explained that it was an old Austin 7. I was told that a
technician would be with me on Friday afternoon to replace it. I imagined that a
technician who spent his time replacing modern wind-screens would arrive and say
he could not do it, but how wrong I was.
Justin arrived and explained that he was from the Flat Glass Division of
National Windscreens. He usually spent his time fitting laminated glass in
industrial plant and tractors, and he had spent that morning fitting some glass
to a bus. (He had a scaffold tower in his van!) and over the years he had fitted
windscreens to many old cars.
My second concern was that the glass in an Austin 7 is quite thin, which I had
told them on the phone. Again I need not have worried as it turns out that the
glass fitted to a Land Rover Defender is the same thickness as an A7 windscreen.
Justin had arrived with a Defender windscreen and having removed my cracked
windscreen he used it as a template to cut a screen to fit my Box out of the
Defender screen. Justin pointed out that the top and bottom of the screen were
parallel but the sides sloped out. Having cut out the straight sides I had
assumed he would have cut the rounded corners with a trammel or something
similar but in fact he was so used to cutting glass he just cut the rounded
corners freehand.
The rubber surround in the frame had perished and I was
wondering how to replace it, but again the solution was simple. They have a
sticky backed rubber foam that is stuck to the edge of the glass and, when
folded round, it can then take up a variable gap in the frame and allow the
frame to flex when using the closer without putting a strain on the glass. All
in all a very satisfactory windscreen replacement service.
Roger Ballard DA7C