MGF Hardtop Window Replacement

It seems that some people regard the advice to never pour warm or hot water onto a screen on cold days as it may crack the glass to be just an old wives tale, and perhaps it is? The resilience of modern glass often supports that view, when so many owners pour warmed water over their frozen screens without harm. However, a recent breakage highlights how easily glass can fail without any outside involvement.

This is how it happened, a late winter snowfall had left several inches of snow over my MGF with Heritage hardtop fitted. The overnight snow was followed by a clear sunny Sunday morning and a marked temperature rise that soon had the snow in full scale retreat. The car was parked with its rear facing the rising sun and a second MGF also with hardtop was parked next to it, but the other way around. The snow had melted and all seemed well whilst I was in the garage just a few metres from the car, when a sharp crack raised my attention. Initially I did not notice anything, but then my eye was drawn to the rear window and an immediate thought that there was a large amount of condensation on the inside of the glass. It then dawned on me that the window was crazed over, and was in fact shattered. As there was no passing traffic at the end of a cul-de-sac, and the only possible cause being a dive bombing bird seemed unlikely, the most likely culprit appeared to be natural heat variation.

Shattered

Irrespective of the cause the next step was a replacement glass and the consideration of insurance cover under ‘body glass’, with the main question being whether the removable hardtop glass is accepted as ‘body glass’. Initial discussion went along the, ‘yes it is’, route, followed by the usual contact our windscreen agent for repair. That done the windscreen agent (yes the usual national windscreen company preferred by most insurers) then had difficulty in identifying the glass and eventually when finding the ‘policy’ that applied to this glass, said that they do not deal with these and you have to go to your main dealer for both supply and fit. Not very helpful on a Sunday, but then as the car was at home the earlier than intended removal of the top would allow the perfectly acceptable soft top to be used.

Hoovering out the broken fragments

New glass and seal offered into place

Rear glass surprisingly quickly installed and hardtop restored

If it had shattered away from home then driving without a rear window would have been quite ‘interesting’ if the weather was less than ideal. Anyway with the glass mostly still in place the top was removed to remove the glass, even so with such a small amount of glass having fallen into the car it still got in the most inaccessible of positions demanding quite some time with the vacuum nozzle.

Naturally the referral to a local dealer for parts and fitting with the associated bill several times that of the windscreen excess at an unknown future date when the dealer received the glass was not attractive. This especially so as a replacement was in stock at MGOC Spares and so collection of the new glass the following day was arranged. (Note that these are collection only.) Cost of the new glass, which is an MG Rover part, (number CQB101190) is a hefty £241.67 plus vat but the members price from MGOC Spares is a much more acceptable £153.95 inc vat, so rather than stand out a large amount from a bill from a dealer and have to chase repayment less the £50 excess from the insurer, plus possibly find they have a ceiling cost that is some way under the total paid and therefore lose much more, I decided a home fit was called for.

The seal had been removed at the time I cleaned up the broken glass and all pieces removed from the glass channel. There was a split at the angled join for the lower left corner which was treated with Superglue and that seems to have worked, otherwise the seal was still in good flexible condition.

Fitting was surprisingly simple with two pairs of hands, it would be far more difficult with one pair, although this was with the top on a piece of carpet and so one person was needed to hold the top steady whilst the other negotiated with the seal.

Firstly the seal was fitted to the glass and then the glass and seal offered up to the hard top from one of the corners. The seal lip that engages around the hard top lip then had to be gently eased over the lip a bit at a time all the way around, with some pushing the glass into a better fit towards the start corner to finally get the glass and seal evenly seated. Surprisingly the total time to fit the glass was around six minutes leaving the need to just refit the short wiring loom for the heated rear window. Then all that was left to do was send a letter with a copy of the bill to the insurance company.