Windshield seal broke loose in high wind

phoeg · 08-31-2018, 02:25 AM

Hello. We had a situation with our 2016 Hurricane windshield I'd like feedback on.

Somewhere just outside the middle-of-nowhere in Nebraska, the rubber seal around the windshield on the driver's side broke loose in strong crosswinds. When the windshield was replaced, I suspect the installers did a half-a job with the seal. At the upper corners there are two openings where the seal bends at about 90°. The wind got in and eventually pulled the seal loose. Of course, the roll of Gorilla tape I bought specifically for the RV apparently didn't make it, nor did a ladder. I found some old (and weak) duct tape in the Jeep and attempted to seal it up to get to North Platte, NE. A guy in Stapleton, NE let me stand on his pickup's tailgate to reach up high and tape it. We made it to North Platte, and the campground info has an ad for window glass work around the corner! Haven't heard back from the guy, but we went to Menard's and bought a step ladder and three big rolls of Gorilla tape. We taped it up really well with the hope of keeping air from getting in under the tape and ripping it loose.

What really grills me is that when I looked at other RVs in the campground, none have those little bends at the corners of the windshield seal. Hence my suspicion about the work on ours being a bit…"subpar." I don't know if that's just a wind/water seal or if it has to do with keeping the windshield in place. It looks like a rubber strip that just presses into another groove around the windshield. But we don't want to take any chances.

I'd like to know if anyone else has had this problem, and/or the safety issues we may have.

Thanks.

A frazzled newbie.

saddlesore · 08-31-2018, 05:16 AM

A pic or 3 would help....

phoeg · 08-31-2018, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by saddlesore

A pic or 3 would help....

Will try later. It was getting dark as we taped it up at the campground.

phoeg · 08-31-2018, 01:35 PM

Click image for larger version

Name: IMG_8025.JPG
Views: 302
Size: 207.8 KB
ID: 12537

Click image for larger version

Name: IMG_8026.jpg
Views: 396
Size: 100.6 KB
ID: 12538

One pic shows the upper right corner bend. The left side (other pic) caught the wind and ripped loose. All taped up as shown. Praying it holds.

Air_Force_dude · 08-31-2018, 05:01 PM

Wow best of luck getting it repaired. That must have been a little frightening having your windshield break the seal during high winds.

saddlesore · 08-31-2018, 05:02 PM

Thnx for the pic's......Bad install or wrong gasket used...or both

phoeg · 08-31-2018, 05:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by saddlesore

Bad install or wrong gasket used...or both

My suspicion exactly. Half…baked job I feel. 60 miles and gorilla tape holding strong.

phoeg · 08-31-2018, 05:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Air_Force_dude

That must have been a little frightening having your windshield break the seal during high winds.

You bet! I knew it wasn’t a flat because handling was unaffected.

Bob Denman · 08-31-2018, 05:24 PM

Wow!
That's just too wrong for words!

The best of luck in getting it fixed!

phoeg · 08-31-2018, 05:43 PM

It came loose with no warning. I was reminded again of “pucker power.” (Can I say that here?)

Bob Denman · 08-31-2018, 05:50 PM

Did you tear the covering off of the driver's seat cushion?

I wouldn't be surprised if you had!

phoeg · 08-31-2018, 05:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob Denman

Did you tear the covering off of the driver's seat cushion?

I wouldn't be surprised if you had!

No. Again: maximum pucker factor. Once we pulled over and I saw the problem I was seriously angry. [emoji35]

Bob Denman · 08-31-2018, 06:08 PM

Anger always trumps fear!

brucev · 08-31-2018, 07:32 PM

Looks like something else I can look forward to. Thank you so much for sharing so we can all check and see if we have the same problem.

phoeg · 08-31-2018, 10:52 PM

We arrived in Salina, KS. 300+ miles and nothing came loose. Recommendation: carry a big roll of Gorilla tape! [emoji16]

Air_Force_dude · 09-01-2018, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by phoeg

We arrived in Salina, KS. 300+ miles and nothing came loose. Recommendation: carry a big roll of Gorilla tape! [emoji16]

Noted! Along with Teflon and electrical. Getting ready to drive from AK through the Yukon/BC territory. Talk about desolate in Oct.

bigben · 09-01-2018, 12:32 PM

In 2017 on our summer tour with grandkids, had a small rock chip that turned into a crack on road trip to Phoenix in April '18. Back home to Ky and prepared for our 2018 summer tour with grands. We had to decide to replace or not replace the windshield. I had heard of these sorts of problems but went ahead with replacement. On the road trip we made it to Illinois before we encountered serious rain. The windshield leaked so badly I actually had to put a bucket to catch the rain water coming in at the same corner that phoeg is pointing out. I used all sorts of stuff to seal the water out. No good. Finally 2 weeks later we were in one place long enough to get the insurance company assigned repair tech out to fix the fix from KY. UUGGHH.

While the tech was repairing the leak, he gave me a lesson in how the windshield mount works. It seems that the rubber gasket doesn't have much to do with sealing or holding the windshield in place. The rubber gasket keeps the weather from getting to the mastic that holds the windshield in place. What a mess - the tech was great. He had to clean all the stuff (gorilla tap, flex seal tape, silicon seal, etc) that I had used to prevent the leak. I wish I would have taken a picture to show how nice that all looked on my very expensive home on wheels. UUGGHH.

Lessons learned - don't replace the windshield unless absolutely necessary AND get the BBIIGG roll of gorilla tape!!

DNS · 09-01-2018, 01:07 PM

We had the same thing happen last fall, minus the puckers in the corners. The weather stripping is only glued at the joint on the bottom middle of the windshield.The driver's side came loose and pulled away about halfway up the side of the windshield. It made an awful racket beating up against the side window. Very scary standing at the side of a busy interstate trying to fix it. I finally cut it off about halfway up and used gorilla tape to hold the rest in place. I still need to get the glue residue off of the paint.

Twenty minutes later the passenger side came loose. My wife was able to snag it with her hand and pull it inside enough to close the side window on it. I pulled the rest of it off when we stopped for the day. I still need to reattach it and plan to use a little more adhesive than they did.

The windshield is held in with a very strong urethane adhesive, so if you don't have any water leaks you probably have a good seal.

phoeg · 09-01-2018, 01:18 PM

BigBen and DNS - Great info! The racket described is what we got. Glad to know that for future reference the seal is just a seal, not to hold in place!

Joe-FL · 09-01-2018, 01:19 PM

The first year we had our Challenger 37GT we had the same thing happen out west. The whole left side of the rubber windshield seal came off and began beating up the side of the coach.

As luck would have it we were about a mile from an exit. Pulled into a large lot across from a farm store, walked across the road and bought a step ladder. Pushed the rubber seal all back in and used duct tape to make sure it stayed. Did a better repair the next month when we returned to SW Florida. Biggest issue was cleaning the residue off the finish where I had used duct tape.

As far as I know my windshield was OEM, but I did buy the coach with about 3,000 miles on it used so I guess it could have been replaced once.

You may also like: