By Jan Willem Briër,  The Netherlands  ( to my other bus pages )

Repairing rusty window frames

The windshield broke

About two weeks after I did my first welding (see page rocker welding) I ran into a challenging problem. The windscreen was shattered and needed to be replaced. That is normally not a real problem but when the old seal was removed a couple of nice rusty bits showed up (see picture below). In fact it was not too bad. Only three spots that actually needed repair. One in the lower left corner, one in the middle and one in the lower right corner. Had the windshield not broken it would have progressed much further. Now I had the chance to fix it before it got out of hand.

	This was the worst one. About an inch of the frame is missing with a little hole underneath (which became bigger in the course of the process). One of the problems is that unless you take apart the entire front these spots are  rather difficult to get at (or under).
	I cut a small piece of sheet metal to fill in the missing bits. It was roughly cut into contour. I pried it in between the layers of metal that make up the window frame.
	Make a couple of small welds to secure the patch. It does not really look very nice but that will come later! Continue to make small welds until the patch is completely secured. This is a job that should not be rushed. It is likely that any holes will get bigger. I had to put on an additional patch to cover the hole in the horizontal part.
	At one time it all looked rather rough and I feared I had to take it all out and start over. However with a lot of patience I finally got it into an acceptable shape. Use your grinder to remove any excess metal.  I used aluminum filled bondo to smoothen things out.
	After sanding down the bondo and using a wire brush on any remaining rust I treated the bare metal with a chemical rust converter followed by a coat of "Stop Rust" paint. I think the result looks rather decent for a first try. It will hold the new windscreen and will probably last quite a while.
	This was one of the other rusty bits. The vertical lip was rusted only partly but there was a rather big hole under it. Again, patches were welded in and bondo used to smoothen everything out.
	After wire brushing and applying primer it look pretty good.
	This is the same part as in the picture above. It looks rather good to me. Anyway it's the best I could do at this time and probably a whole lot better than not doing anything at all!

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