A 25 New Windshield

[locoengin]

Has anyone ever replaced the windshield on a 1979 A 25 ? Are they available or have to be made ? Any estimate of cost from your experience. Thanks Steve

[DesertAlbin736]

That's my biggest fear, ever having the need to replace the windshield. It's made of auto glass, not plexi. Lord knows where you could find one or have one made, at least made of glass instead of acrylic. My boat has the motor sailer option of stepping a mast just ahead on the windshield. I have the mast and rig, but neither myself nor the immediate previous owner ever attempted to install the mast. I'd be scared to death of having the butt of the mast slip and bust the windshield while trying to attach it to the mast step.

If you do find a source let us know for future reference.

[Vic K]

Any glass shop can replace the windshield if you have the dimensions. I've replaced all the ones on my 27. One slider was replaced twice since the boat mover broke the first new one.

Good luck...relax. There's nothing on these boats that can't be replaced, fixed or epoxied. If it can't be fixed with a hammer it's electrical.

Vic

[Beta Don]

I've replaced the ones on my 27 too - They're easy to find because they are all flat glass, which can be cut to fit by most any glass shop, as you said. The windshield in the 25 is another matter. It's a curved automotive-style glass and I kinda doubt anying but an original could replace it. I have *no idea* where you would source an A25 windshield. I'll bet it would have been very hard to find 35 years ago - Next to impossible now I'm afraid

Don

[DesertAlbin736]

Steve

Re-visiting this thread, it occurred to me perhaps a good lead might be contacting this Albin 25 club in Sweden. About as close to the source as one could get on replacing windshields.

It's all in Swedish, but they can correspond in English, and if all else fails and you have a recent version of Microsoft Word you can type in English and translate text into Swedish. I'd hate to even think how expensive it would be to source one from Sweden and have it shipped to the US.

http://www.albin25.se/

[DesertAlbin736]

Revisiting this issue a 2nd time, it occurred to me that with all the hot rodders out there 'chopping and channeling' old 30's, 40's, and 50's cars it must be fairly common, and even replacing stock 50s wrap around windshields, not to mention custom yachts, there must be at least a few outfits that do custom laminated glass windshields to order. No doubt it would be expensive, probably in the mid to upper 3 figures, but in fact the Albin 25 windshield is basically rectangular with modest curve and should not be all that hard to duplicate.

Here's one such company: http://www.coastalcurvedglass.com/blog/ ... chts-boats

You might have to make a pattern by taking some thin plywood cut and bent to shape and fiberglassed to hold the curve. All the better if you could find such a shop close enough where you could take your boat to them.

[Beta Don]

In the December 1979 issue of Road and Track, there was a 'Super Rabbit' on the cover. Someone took a wrecked Porsche 928 and cut the body off and then took a VW Rabbit body, widened it 9 inches and fit it to the Porsche chassis. The net result was a Rabbit which was actually faster than the Porsche, due to it's lower Cd - Go figure!

It was an expensive project, and the windshield and back glass were a large chunk of that - Something like $3500 for the custom windshield alone if I recall correctly

It turned out to be popular - I think he built and sold 10 or 12 of them

Edit - I found a link to the article http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture ... er-rabbit/

Don

[DesertAlbin736]

Friend of ours from our sailing club is in the process of restoring a 1966 Porche 911, one of the rare early years of that model that when finished could be worth up to $100K. He's an anesthesiologist with a fully equipped home workshop to die for. The catch with this car is that the unibody is so rusted it looks like Swiss cheese. Right now it's completely stripped & sandblasted & mounted on a spindle jig & he's in the process tig welding in various replacement sections. It's a monumental better-him-than-me project and far from complete. But he will also have to replace all the glass. He also has a 1954 BSA motorcycle he restored to concours showroom condition.

He was part of our group that spent a week in Rhode Island last summer. Here he is at the helm of a 12 meter America's Cup yacht during a daysail excursion we did in Newport, RI.