Recent tornadoes in the United States bring to mind one of the car parts most likely to need replacing and that is the windshield. Since a small stone or tree branch can cause a crack or chip in your windshield, chances are that most of you out there have had to deal with this at one time or another. Perhaps you have a ding or chip right now and if that’s the case it is only going to get bigger with time as road vibrations will continue to spread that chip or crack until your entire windshield looks like a spiderweb. Of course other car parts get damaged like the doors, trunks, hood and wheels, but the windshield is the most often damaged part on your vehicle.
But back to the windshield and its history. Prior to 1919 windshields (windscreens in the UK) were made of regular glass. Well, you can imagine how un-safe that was for the drivers and passengers, but prior to 1917 it really wasn’t an important issue because the cars hardly went fast enough to cause any damage even if the windshield did break.
Then along came a lawsuit entitled Pane vs Ford in 1917; Mr. Pane was in an accident in his Ford automobile and the glass shattered causing severe damage to Mr. Pane. He sued Ford Motor Company, a lawsuit he lost due to his reckless driving, but that lawsuit led Henry Ford to look for safe windshields.
He found the safer windshield in 1919 from a French invention called glass lamination. A layer of cellulose is spread between two layers of auto glass, thus bonding them so they can’t shatter. This invention was adopted in all Ford vehicles in 1919 and it is still being used today, almost 100 years later.
In some cases of minor damage the windshield can be repaired by injecting more cellulose into the inner layer but when that fails then it is time to replace that windshield and this is really a fairly easy repair to perform.
First thing you do is head on down to your local Fort Worth salvage yard and find a windshield for your make and model car. Then pay for it saving upwards of 50% on that particular replacement part, then take it home, break the seal on the old windshield, replace it with the new one and seal it into place.
This is such an easy repair that this author can do it and that is always the standard by which the ease of a repair is gauged. Yes, it is tornado season, but no matter what the season there is always the chance that your windshield is going to get nicked and dinged. Head to your local junk yard for all of your replacement auto parts today.