Rear and Front Screen
Like everything else, the rear screen seal doesn't fit straight off the shelf. About a year earlier we had had a testrun where we had cut down the seal to what we thought was the proper length. It turned out that once in place the screen pushes out quite a lot of material into the corners. The first time the seal was an inch too short, the second time (or seal) around we had learnt the lesson.
The windscreen proved to be one of the biggest challenges of the entire project. When we got the body and all the parts in March '97 we had made a quick casual test fit of the windscreen and it seemed to be OK. At that time I had also bought two sets of the plastic chrome surround, I got an extra set in case something would go wrong.
The the plastic trim was the first problem we discovered two years later when the time had come to do the installation. The new trim was narrower than the original trim and it was also very hard to bend without creasing the metallic decor foil inside the plastic. We heated the plastic, but no matter how gently we bent it the foil creased and the trim looked awful. After a lot of frustration we finally happened to notice that if we stretched the trim longitudinally while bending it, there were no creases! Luckily I had the two sets of trim which ment there was still one set of trim left after the intial experimenting sessions.

On later Plus 2 cars, such as mine, the windscreen is bonded with butyl rubber. We glued little pieces of (not butyl) rubber to the edges of the windscreen to simulate the thickness that the butyl would build up, and attached the trim to the screen. When we placed the sceen with trim in the aperture of the body we realized that the apperture was not symmetrical. The right side of the roof was lower than the left, and with the new trim being narrower than the original, the trim was just barely overlapping the body. This seemed a very critical problem.

A lot of measurments were taken around the entire edge of the apperture to determine how much extra butyl would have to be added to compensate for the incorrectness of the body. This procedure is described in the Service Manual, but this body seemed to be close to the maximum recommened limits of how much compensation can be done. After a lot of experimenting by my father we finally had something which might just work. We placed tape markers on the windscreen and the body to make sure we could line up everything when we would drop the screen in. To perfect this procedure we made countless tests, we carried the screen to the car in a horizontal position and offered it up to the tape markers on the roof. Still, we were a bit worried because we knew we would only have one go when it was for real. Butyl is very sticky, and if we placed the screen just a little bit wrong, it would be hard to fight a length of 4 m of butyl to correct any misfit.

All the practise proved worth while, and we landed the screen just on our markers. Then it was just a question of pushing as hard as possible to make sure the butyl really bonded with the screen.

To conceal the butyl rubber from being seen from the outside we painted a 15 mm black strip around the entire edge of the screen. This paint also serves as a primer for the butyl.

Oh yes, I almost forgot. The sack of fertilezer inside the car is there to load the car to make it possible to connect the donuts of the rear suspension.