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PHOTO 1: Finally, the seal strip and the belt molding can be removed. The belt molding was held on with Phillips head screws while the seal strip was held on with metal spring clips.

CHAPTER THREE

Glass Removal

When removing glass, I prefer to start with the driver’s door. I often find broken or damaged runners, slides, glides, and rollers in the bottom of the door when I tear it down, and I don’t always know where and how each of those parts is supposed to work. Getting a look at the broken or worn-out parts fixes them in my mind so when I begin teardown on the passenger side, which is usually in better condition, I am quickly able to determine where and how each of these damaged items should work. I also take photographs.

The Charger has manual windows, and after operating the driver’s side regulator, I decide to note this mechanism on the master checklist as badly worn. The crank handle is hard to turn and the glass has a tendency to shift in the guides as it moves up. This indicates that the regulator has seen better days so I place the regulator on the salvage parts list as well, just in case I get lucky and find a body with a good regulator still in the door.

Remove Door Glass

I start by rolling the door glass three-quarters of the way up and removing the C-shaped rear run channel found at the rear of the glass. Next, I unbolt the regulator by removing the four bolts holding it in place. Then I slip the regulator arm from the channel attached to the bottom of the glass and remove it from the door. Note: You have to physically hold the door glass up to prevent it from dropping to the bottom of the door as you remove the regulator. Once you’ve removed the regulator, you can allow the glass to slide slowly to the bottom of the door. Caution! Don’t let the glass drop!

The vent glass assembly has six bolts holding it in place: two are hiding behind plastic trim buttons near the front of the door, one is located underneath the door, and the others are near the upper hinge. But that’s not all. Chrysler’s sense of humor was running rampant in 1970. It chose to hide an additional hex (Allen head) bolt behind the small access hole. I have to loosen it before the vent assembly will slide back so I can lift it up and out of the door. Note: As you lift the vent glass assembly out of the door, allow the door glass itself to travel down free of the forward run channel, which is a part of the vent glass assembly. I will disassemble the vent glass unit later, but for now let’s continue with the door glass teardown.

The door glass has a small plastic knob located near the lower rear corner of the glass. I remove the Phillips head screw from the knob and then the knob from the glass using a pair of pliers to gently twist the knob free of the glass. Now the glass lifts up and comes out of the door.

In photo 4, I have everything that was removed from the door laid out in the same order in which each part was removed. This photograph will help me later when I begin to assemble the door. I add all of the broken and missing parts to the master checklist.

PHOTO 2: Glass removal begins with the driver’s door. I want a photo of the door with all of the mechanisms in place for future reference.

PHOTO 3: Before I can remove the glass from the door, I must remove this tiny plastic knob from the glass. Once removed the glass will lift up and out of the door.

PHOTO 4: Now where did this part go? Photos never forget. Having a photo of everything you take out of the door will be a real help a year from now when you start trying to reassemble it.

PHOTO 5: While broken, this tiny spring is very important to the operation of the door glass. Now is the time to determine why this spring is here and how it works.

Look at photo 5. This is a small spring that I should have found inside the rear glass channel guide. A close inspection of the other side of the channel shows a plastic guide attached to the spring. I was able to determine the exact purpose of this spring only after tearing down the passenger side of the car and looking at that spring assembly.

The spring assembly on the passenger side is still intact and working properly. The purpose of the spring is to allow the plastic guide in photo 6 to gently tuck into an additional plastic guide on the rear run channel, securing the glass and keeping it from vibrating once it is rolled up. This is one of those details that if missed would cause the glass not to fit and work like it should once the door is reassembled.

Remove Vent Glass

I disassemble the vent glass assembly next. I note an L-shaped bracket. This is the lower support bracket designed to hold the front door glass run channel on the vent glass assembly in place. Welding will be required to reattach it to the vent glass assembly. I’ll do that at a later time. Note: The broken support bracket could have contributed to the poor operation of the door glass.

Notice the small pin located at the center bottom of the vent glass. Nearly all vent glass assemblies use a pin of some sort to hold the glass assembly in place within the vent glass frame. The pin must be removed for the glass to lift up and out of the vent glass assembly. A small pair of Vise-Grip brand pliers does the trick with ease. With the pin removed, I can remove the glass pivot screw—usually located about midway up the leading edge of the glass—to free the glass from the assembly. I slide the glass up and out of the vent glass assembly and store it away.

To polish the assembly, which I will do later, the weather stripping must be removed. The weather strip is set into a channel around the inside of the frame assembly. Gently pry it out using a small flat-bladed screwdriver.

Remove Quarter Glass

Note: Before disassembling the quarter glass unit, I recommend you operate and study the workings of the assembly to get a firm grasp on how the unit works. Unlike most door glass regulators, whose function is to move the glass straight up or straight down, most quarter glass regulators are designed to move the glass forward and up, then backward and down. An intricate maze of guides, runners, and channels are required for the unit to work properly. Having even a minimal grasp on how the unit works will help immensely when you are ready to reinstall it.

I begin removal by rolling the glass partially down and looking through the access ports for two bolts located near the bottom of the glass. I remove these bolts and lift the glass up and out of the quarter structure.

With the glass safely removed, I begin teardown of the regulator assembly by removing all of the bolts holding the assembly to the inner quarter structure. The regulator assembly is a two-part unit consisting of a double arm regulator and a channel support bracket. The channel support bracket has a long forward glass run channel as well as a short rearward glass run channel attached to it. I remove the forward channel first by unbolting it and sliding it up and out of the window opening. Then I remove the short rearward channel via one of the access holes on the inner structure of the quarter.

I free the regulator of the channel support bracket by sliding the rollers out of the bracket. Then I remove the bracket itself from the quarter glass cavity the same way I removed the glass, up and out the top of the glass cavity. The regulator can now come out through the large access hole located near the bottom of the inner quarter structure. But the keeper you see in the center of photo 17 holds the regulator to the channel support bracket and needs to be removed before either the channel support bracket or the regulator can come out of the vehicle.

Next, I remove the window seal weather strips and the belt moldings. The outer seal strips are clipped like the seal strips are on the doors and can be removed in the same manner. The quarter belt moldings are attached with Phillips head screws instead of the spring clips used to attach the door belt moldings.

Remove Back Glass

I know I have a problem when I attempt to remove the reveal moldings with my reveal molding tool, and they refuse to simply pop off the glass.

After an hour of gentle persuasion, careful prying, and delicate prodding, I finally get the moldings off. I find household silicone adhesive packed underneath all of the moldings (which explains why the moldings were so difficult to remove) and precious few of the actual retainer clips that should be holding the moldings in place. I do find one retainer clip worth saving. I’ll use it for comparison later on when I’m ready to purchase new ones.

In body shop terms, the back glass in the Charger is considered to be soft set, meaning a soft rubber compound was used to install the glass way back when the car was manufactured. That was before the rust worms ate into the deck lid filler panel and some previous owner tried to seal the holes with silicone, house caulk, and what appears to be concrete. This presents a dilemma in that I have to remove all of these various sealing attempts from the glass flange area before I can successfully remove the glass. In real time I spend about two and a half hours cleaning out the flange area around the glass using a small flat-bladed screwdriver, a few dozen safety razors, and a soft brush.

PHOTO 6: The spring in Photo 5 is attached to this plastic wedge piece found on the opposite side of the glass run channel guide. The plastic piece is designed to slide a distance of ½ inch along the guide and is spring loaded up.

PHOTO 7: Removing the glass from the passenger side of the Charger gives us a better idea of how the spring is mounted. If you look inside the guide channel, you can see the travel slot for the plastic wedge. The function of the wedge is to stabilize the glass from vibrating when it is rolled up.

PHOTO 8: With all of the bolts removed, the vent glass assembly slides back then lifts up and out of the door.

PHOTO 9: This is the retainer pin that holds the vent glass in the frame. Some are spring loaded, but this one is not. The easiest way to remove the pin is with a pair of Vise-Grip pliers. Give the pin a gentle twist and it will pull right out.

PHOTO 10: The gasket on the vent glass assembly is set in a channel. The best way to remove this gasket is to use a flat bladed screwdriver to gently pry the gasket free of the frame and remove it. Caution! Don’t pull on the gasket! It might break.

PHOTO 11: Next to go is the latch assembly. The latch has three screws holding it in place. Once the screws are removed, check the doorframe for cracks. Old Mopars are famous for having cracks radiating out from the screw holes to the latch opening. Any cracks you find should be welded back together.

For the actual glass removal, I call in my assistant, Bryan. He brings with him a trio of tools designed exclusively for removing this type of back glass. Far left in photo 19 is a plastic windshield knife used primarily on gasket-type windshields. Center is a wire knife, available from the Eastwood Company for about $30, which works much like a flexible saw blade to cut the glass free. Far right is a glass removal knife that uses an L-shaped blade to slip under the glass and cut it free.

The glass removal knife works best when the blade is sharp. Either sharpen the blade before use or replace it. I place the blade into the flange channel parallel to the edge of the back glass and carefully twist the tool to slide the blade under the glass. Once positioned under the glass, I pull the knife toward me while maintaining the knife in a forward-cocked position. This forces the blade to cut at a downward angle, thereby reducing the chance of having the blade touch the glass itself. Warning! Allowing the blade to work against the glass can cause the glass to break. I carefully work the blade around the perimeter of the glass, changing the position of the knife as necessary so I am always pulling the knife toward me.

The wire knife works by sliding one end of the wire under the glass and then attaching the handles at both ends of the wire. But as aged and hardened as the back glass sealant is on my Charger, the wire will never push through the material unless I use the glass removal knife to cut a small access slit through the sealant. Once the wire is through, one handle of the wire knife is inside the vehicle and the other is outside, which requires two people to properly operate this tool. Work the tool in a sawing motion along the edge of the glass to cut the sealant. Don’t allow this tool to work against the glass either. Breakage can occur. Note: Once you push the wire through the sealant, you need a pair of needle-nose pliers to fish the wire up and out of the glass flange channel.

Bryan begins with the glass removal knife, which works well along the top and across the bottom of the glass. The corners and sides, however, are a different matter. The glass removal knife refuses to do the work for us, so I am unable to remove all of the concrete/silicone/caulk from the back glass. In the end, we use the wire knife to cut through the corners and free the glass. Looking back, I think using the wire knife for the entire job would have been faster, definitely safer, and less demanding physically.

PHOTO 12: Quarter glass assemblies can be difficult if not impossible to work on. Before breaking out the tools, roll the glass up and down a few times to gain a better understanding of how it works. Believe me, it will help later on during reassembly.

PHOTO 13: Note the two arrows. The two bolts holding the glass to the regulator can be accessed through these openings. Once they are removed, the glass will come out.

PHOTO 14: The forward run channel goes next, followed by a shorter run channel located just behind the rearward indicated opening (where the rear arrow points).

PHOTO 15: Next goes the regulator support bracket. Remove it through the glass opening.

PHOTO 16: And finally, remove the regulator itself. It is best to remove it through the large opening at the bottom of the inner quarter.

PHOTO 17: There is always a hitch. In this case, I must remove the retainer in order to separate the regulator from the regulator support bracket before either can be removed from the Charger.

PHOTO 18: These are the reveal moldings removed from the back glass. Notice they are full of the silicone, caulk, and concrete mixture used to hold them in place around the back glass. They will require a lot of cleaning and polishing before they can be reused.

PHOTO 19: Glass removal tools. From left to right: plastic windshield knife used to remove gasket installed glass, a wire windshield knife used to cut adhesive-set glass free of the glass flange, and a windshield knife also used to cut adhesive-set glass free of the glass flange.

PHOTO 20: After some effort with the windshield knife we determined the best way to finish cutting the back glass out of the Charger is to switch to the windshield wire knife. Here we are using the wire knife to saw our way around the lower right corner of the glass.

Remove Windshield

Like the back glass, the windshield uses clip-on reveal moldings that must be removed before the glass will come out. Luckily for me, some past owner of my Charger chose to reinstall these moldings using only an excessive amount of silicone (most of the actual molding clips were missing) instead of the silicone/caulk/concrete solution used on the back glass moldings. I have the moldings off in less than an hour.

Let’s talk about previous installation methods. If you suspect you have a urethane-set windshield, I suggest you call a professional to remove the glass. Go inside your vehicle and make sure the garnish moldings have been removed. If you have a urethane-set windshield, the sealant between the glass flange and the glass will be extremely firm, but not brick hard, and glossy black in color. A professional removal job should run about $40. Note: If your windshield is only a few years old, it may be set in urethane, as urethane has become the product of choice for most professionals.

If the sealant (still looking from inside the vehicle) is soft and pliable, it should cut out fairly easily. If you decide to attempt the job yourself, I recommend using the wire knife instead of the windshield knife to cut out the glass. Remember that it takes two people to operate the wire knife properly.

Gasket-installed windshields are another story. They come in three types: self-locking, locking bead, and nonlocking. Self-locking and locking bead gaskets are generally installed on the flange first. Then the windshield is set into the gasket and locked into place via the self-locking channel in the gasket or the installation of a locking bead into the gasket. Nonlocking gaskets are generally installed around the windshield first. Then the gasket is pulled over the flange from the inside of the vehicle, which locks the gasket in place on the flange. In the case of my Charger, the gasket is in good condition—no cracks and still pliable. The gasket is a self-locking gasket, meaning it does not use a separate locking bead to secure the glass within the gasket.

A plastic windshield knife like the one in photo 19 is needed to unlock a self-locking gasket. This plastic tool is designed to slip into the locked gasket and open the lock, thereby freeing the windshield for removal. Warning! Never use a metal tool to remove or install glass. You will break the glass. Once the gasket has been unlocked, I like to run the plastic tool around the edge of the glass to help separate the glass from the gasket. I also go inside the vehicle and do the same thing: run the tool around the glass, between the glass and the gasket. In a case where the gasket is stiff and difficult to work with, I spray a generous amount of WD-40 between the glass and gasket to help free it.

PHOTO 21: The plastic windshield tool, shown in Photo 19, is used here to open the self-locking gasket around the windshield.

PHOTO 22: The last step before attempting to remove the windshield is to squirt WD-40 between the windshield and the gasket all the way around the windshield. WD-40 helps the glass slip out of the gasket easier and reduces the chances of glass breakage.

PHOTO 23: Once the glass is removed, all that remains is to clean up the mess left behind. Never use a blower to clean up broken glass. Use a vacuum for the big stuff and a small brush to get into the tight areas.

PHOTO 24: What are these? Mounted on the inside and around the perimeter of the back glass, these metal strips hold the headliner in place. Notice the sawtooth edges on each of the pieces—they grip the headliner and hold it firm.

With the gasket unlocked, I push the glass out from the inside. Warning! This is the easiest way I know to break a windshield. If breakage isn’t a problem, get after it. If breakage is not a desirable option, I suggest you sacrifice the gasket by shaving off the top of the gasket (all of the gasket above the glass) using a safety razor to expose the entire windshield, instead of trying to free the windshield from the gasket by pushing it out. Then gently push the glass out of the remaining portion of the gasket.

After removal, I store the windshield and the back glass where accidental bumping is unlikely to occur. To prevent breakage, I store glass in a vertical position—I never lay it flat.