Nope. That's reality. Once you have either done it once yourself (I have) or watched it done, you'll understand why it has to be that way. The rubber "seal" isn't a seal at all. It's just a cosmetic gasket. The urethane glue is the seal.

 

We had this conversation a while back here, and compared notes and got quite a bit of good input from people who have had it done, done it themselves,, and from pros who do the work. As I had suspected. the only difference in the years is that the older ones had that aluminum trim, and the later ones have the rubber. That rubber is cheap, IIRC it was less than $20. Just have it replaced with the windshield.

 

Yes, I forgot to mention the older aluminum ones.

Here you go OP maybe this will be somewhat useful
https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f59/wi...gasket-250936/

 

the '96 has a 1 piece rubber seal that wraps around the screen.

The urethane is applied to the pinchweld and the rubber seal pushed back into the goo, squeezing it inside somewhat, and forming a waterproof and structural seal

the front of the seal covers the front of the screen

One of the main reasons the glass companies want to fit a new screen, is it faster, as cutting the old one out is difficult and time consuming, if you do in a manner that is to prevent the glass breaking,
it then has to be cleaned of the old material...also an old screen is usually faded, chipped, scratched etc.

If yours is bad, consider a new one...make sure you attend the pinchweld rust yourself though...do not leave it to any glass fitters...its a multi day job to do it properly

I cannot emphasise strongly enough how bad a rust perforated pinchweld is, its literally a car killer

 

Well crap...... this is my DD, and my cummins is getting the transmission fixed, and my Camaro is on jacks in my garage getting some minor work done. So I guess I could address this when I get my truck back, or get the camaro put back together. but I dont wanna drive it that much in the winter with all this salt and crap on the roads from the snow. My paint is in really good shape and I'd like to avoid chips and whatnot. Not to mention if it did snow while I had to drive it, I would be all over the road... not on purpose.

I wonder what a glass company would say if i had them come out, remove the old screen, I took a day or two to address possible rust, then they come back out to put the new glass in. My glass has no cracks or chips, but it has some scratches in the upper left corner that arent in my field of view, but just annoying. And I'm sure that a new piece of glass would look amazing... I'm probably used to the way this glass looks and I dont realize how much its been sandblasted and stuff.

 

They will charge you twice and also say something like "we cant gaurentee the glass wont break"
Its not easy to cut the poly or whatever they use to stick it in, It also (should) be removed from the pinchweld, which tears off the paint anyway

try slipping a thin wire thru the suspect area/s, mine was mainly on the top

 

Yeah I'm sure its all or nothing so they can guarantee the work and provide the warranty. I may just suck it up and get it all done for under $300... I'd say it's worth it so I don't end up with structural damage from rust.

 

except they wont, or wont do it properly, to fix the rust, if there is any...that is body shop work, and will cost...a lot if the metal is perforated.

here is some pics of my '96 for guidance..I removed the glass by pulling a ~.045" (E bass) steel wound guitar string from inside and out, using leather gloves




Once you got it out without breakage, you have to remove the old sealant, revealing something like this;




As you can clearly see, any area with bare oxidised metal must be bought back to bright shiny steel, coated with a good metal primer, filler, and topcoat

The windscreen guys wont do this...that is why the process takes a couple of days minimum.

I strongly recommend fitment be done by an experienced pro...my guy has been doing it 30yrs and is a wizard.
He charges less than $100, and the chemicals cost a fair bit if you have to buy them yourself, I pay him cash off the books, he comes to my place after his work or on weekends

 

I had a leak in my '00 and was able to determine that it was coming from the windshield.
Just so happened that I was having my body guy deal with some surface rust issues at about the same time.
So I had him deal with that to which he farmed out to his glass guy.
Figured if there was going on under there that needed work he could handle it at the same time.
Turned out a simply remove, new molding, regunk, and replace was all that was needed.
His glass guy is now my glass guy and did my back hatch glass when I swapped over to Factory Privacy glass.
Found all the glass I needed but had him remove just the hatch glass.
Charged me $100 to remove the hatch glass from the boneyard Jeep, remove the regular glass in mine, and replace with the boneyard glass.
And did it at my store in the parking lot. LOL.

 

This talk of "Factory Privacy Glass" has piqued my interest..my daily driver '96 Sports has ****ty internal tint peeling of the side windows.

My spare '96 "Limited", which is a top of the line model seems to have colored glass

The rear hatch glass is easy to swap over, using thin nylon cord and detergent to pop out the old one, and insert the new one, kept the old seal

The Limited has the fake wood insert door trims as well !

 

See that is the cool thing about the '96 down XJ's. Just like the cargo bay windows in all XJ's.
If my '00 was like that could have saved myself $132. Wouldn't have had to pay my glass guy and probably could
have reused the old molding but......
My cost would have been $200 flat.
Maybe I could have done it myself but wasn't willing to chance it.
I don't know about '96 and down but on '97 and up somebody here, think it was rocketmouse, tinted his front door windows to
match his Factory Privacy glass. Did it himself and came up with a 20% tint being a good match to the others.
I have no desire to tint my front door windows. At least not yet. LOL.
No idea of what the laws are in my state and no desire to find out.

 

Well I'm just hoping I dont have the degree of rust...... I will wait until I have my truck back before I remove the windshield so I can have another vehicle to drive if mine has to sit in the shop for a day or 2 getting rust work done

 

that is " mild surface rust"..only discovered when you tear out the bead of poly, which pulls up the paint and primer...a newbie may skip this step,

in my case, the rust was almost all confined to the spot shown..a wire could be fed thru, and a wind noise heard (for a few months before)

there was no perforation, but it does take time to clean up the area properly and treat it with quality products

One of my old vehicles had a tiny rust bubble the size of a match head externally....100 hrs of fabrication & repair later, the damage was repaired

 

If I find rust, and JUST surface rust without any structural damage, would it be permissible to use a rust converter and spray it on and call it a day? Then put the new windshield and seals back in? Or should the rust be completely removed via sandblaster or what have you, then primed and all that...??? I know a good rust converter will stop the rust process and cover it up so it wont rust anymore....

 

not in my opinion, in the case of surface rust it should be removed with a wire wheel, abrasive wheel or whatever means needed, sandblasting is not a good idea in that location, unless all precautions are taken to prevent abrasive ingress...it might take you a couple of hours to make it good, then rust convertor, then preferably a 2 pac epoxy primer (which can be applied with a brush), high build primer, then whatever topcoat you have can be blended in. Dont forget you need a new seal

Check you drip rails from above while you are at it