You know what's funny about this Mike, before someone told me you can't cut a laminated windshield out with a cut out knife, I did a bunch of them and didn't break a one! Then I learned that you can't do it and that was the end of me being able to do it.
ain:
But honestly, cutting a windshield out that you are going to toss in the garbage anyway? Why not just go for it.
Here is the lowdown.
Cut it out using one of these.
You want to cut it right against the glass, which is the easiest too. The blade slides on the glass separating the glass from the urethane.
After you remove the glass you then need to cut the urethane bed down some, cutting it in half or a little lower is what you want. This leaves a nice clean urethane for your new urethane to adhere to. DO NOT clean it or do anything to this cut urethane, cut it with a nice new razor blade and that shiny black surface is exactly what you want to put your urethane on top of. This is called a "partial cut out" in the industry and part of the ICAR guidelines to window replacement.
You cut the tip of your urethane tube (and NO you don't need to buy an electric gun, the manual gun works just fine) so that it puts a V shaped bead like this.
You cut the tip like this.
Here is a site explaining why.
Round Bead v.
You set the glass onto this bead and press it down a bit and wham, you have a windshield installed.
A few pieces of blue masking tape holding it in place and the next day you drive off like a hero.
HOWEVER, on the same respect, the windshield costs you $80 (MY GOD that cheap) and the urethane is about $30 I believe and the caulking gun (it needs to be a real good one not those cheapie sheetmetal ones from the McHome store) is about $20. That means those guys are only charging $70 to install it. I would say I would save up by skipping the red bull in the morning and beer in the evening for a few weeks and have them do it.
There is NOTHING that is more crappy and harder to remove than window urethane! You go to set that glass in and you touch the urethane and lift it up, STRINGS of urethane are now going to fall all over on the dash and your hands and arms. This stuff is SERIOUSLY hard to get out.
Brian