Anyone ever have one? We were working on my Dodge in the shop today, and a couple guys were bullshitting by the front door. The rear windshield was sitting on one of those large, padded, tubing horses in the middle of the shop. All of a sudden the damn thing exploded! Being tempered glass, it just shattered into a million bits, no one was even near it. nothing was dropped on it, and it had been sitting there for the whole day (no temperature changes) Anyone ever have this happen to them? Anyone have a rear windshield for a 61 Dodge pioneer? They can't be easy to find!
ive never seen of or heard of anything like this happeneing, but maybe the car gods were communicating in an unusual way. either way...SCARRY!
I know that when I was taking auto body 30 or so years ago the instructor (who I thought was quite anal) never let us lay glass flat. We always stored it on edge. Over the years I've learned he was right about most things.
George thinks he may have one and will get back to me in a few. The only bad part about it is we are in Washington State (Clear across the world) Gumpa
Which body style? I have one that might fit right on the back porch. The only one that might be tough is the great big one for the 2dr hardtop. The others, I think I can find if I don't have one already. These year Chrysler windows can be easy to break, I bought a '58 Chrysler just to sell a guy the rear glass out of it because he broke his trying to pull it - wasn't roughhousing it, or anything, it just popped on him.
We have 3 different ones for the 61 Dodge so if you can get me some information such as 2 door or 4 door, Hardtop or post, and a measurement top to bottom Dead Center, there is a real good chance we have it. Gumpa
Yes, It used to happen on early 90's Suburbans all of the time A customer would say that they be driving then park & go in to place & come out & there'd be broken glass all over the place=lot of initial insurance claims. Then one day we were in the shop & a FBI black suburban was in for something electrical & while the window was up it popped! Broken glass everywhere. Nobody did anything to it & the rear was backed in the stall. Saw about 3 of them pop during that time. I thought that it was a glass adjustement, but PPG came out & brought out prototype replacements & thats the last I ever saw of em. Kevin
I dropped a piece of tempered glass once and when i went to pick it up, as soon as I touched it, it exploded. i would think that something may have happened to the temper of your backlit at one point in time. It would seem that tempered glass has a memory and will explode at a later time from a prior shock. . . .
I too have seen it. This was about 2 1/2 years ago. I had just installed an overhauled 700R4 in a 85 chevy half ton. My uncle went and test drove it while I swept the bay. He came back and got out to finish the invoice. He walked out about 10 feet from the truck and right in front of me, the driver side door window just exploded. Millions of pieces, glass everywhere. Took a while to convince the owner what happened.
My buddie & I did a 4" chop on his 77 Chevy stepbed,& decided to chop the windshield ourselves. We used a 4" angle sander with coarse grit,& got progressibly finer,he ground on it while I cooled it with a spritz of water.....perfect. We set it up against the washer/dryer in the garage,on a towel. About 15 minutes later,we hear a whooomph. The damn thing shattered all by itself.We tried a different method cutting the next one down with compressed air & water & it broke too...same goddamn way,,nobody near it. Went to the glass shop with the next one. To this day,we cannot figure out why they broke,& why they took so LONG to break.We kept it cool/ambient temp during the grinding & took our time. It was fun!
I had a scrap piece of glass I tried to cut down to make a windshield for a little T-bucket I scaratch built. I marked it, scored it, and when I tapped it, KAPOW!!! I thought it was safety glass, I didn't know it was tempered! HA! Glass is a funny animal. We worked a car fire once and I tried to bust out a side window with a heavy 4 "D cell" Mag light I had in my hand. I hit it pretty hard twiceand it wouldn't break. The third and fourth time I hit it as hard as I could. Nothing. Then I pulled out my little glass punch (like a spring loaded nail punch) and POP!
It happined to my sons Cougar a few months ago.. The back window just exploded. If it hadn't happined in the driveway while I was home I wouldn't of beleaved it. The glass shop couldn't explain it. I kind of assumed it got a chip and as the sun warmed it up it went. A weird phonamina. Maybe a flaw in the tempering?
My autobody instructor said the same thing: he claimed that glass has the properties of a liquid when laid flat (not really sure what he meant by that), but yeah, we had to keep all our glass in verticle positioned racks. I never saw one myself, be he said that they had a couple randomly explode over the years. I guess there got to be too much tension on the glass when it lay flat, even with plenty of padding and shit.
I've known guys that would break a window once a week opening doors (Without the key that is). I never broke one. The same guys who would brake glass all the time would be sent out to the back yard to train with me. They would cringe when I would put my knee on the door edge of a Honda, and grab the window frame top and pull it down until I could reach in and hit the lock, or use my wallet for a door wedge to stick tools in. The case was always that the glass breakers were too scared to apply heavy pressure across the windows, and stick the pointy tools in the smallest crack they could wedge in the door. I knew some shady 'Vette guy that would drum up local business by driving around with some broken spark plug insulator ceramic. He would just toss it at back windows ot shatter them, then wait for the guy to show up at his shop.
Believe it or not, glass is a liquid. Once it has been fired and cooled it still 'flows' the movement can take 100+ years to do though. That is why, when you see realy old buildings with the original glass the appear wavy, they were never made like that, it is 'flow' as the glass begins to pool at the bottom. I found it hard to beilieve at first, I learnt that while helping to restore a 120 year old house. Took the glass out and it was visibly narrower at the top and thicker at the bottom. I wonder if the glass moves enough while lying flat to do it?? Doc.
I had a replacement side piece in my 50 plymouth and POP!! It went while I was cruzing down the street and scared the crap outa me and wife!!! Boy old cars are FUN!!
how funny to hear that i was'nt the only one to witness such a thing... years ago while at work in a small shop (about 6 of us worked there including the 2owners) one of the guys had his car parked right outside the overhead door. we were all right inside when the back window of his 80 something T-bird just blew up. we were looking everywhere to see who threw what at it but there was nobody anywhere around and nothin in the car to indicate something had been thrown through it. we finaly figured it must have exploded all on it's own. we assumed it had to do with the defroster setup malfunctioning and overheating the glass (it was a cold winter day) and the sudden temp change did it... i guess, now, that is'nt necesarily the case.
If laying glass flat is what causes it to do funny things, why don't glass sunroofs and T-tops shatter like that?
They have a rubber surround, It could also be from a vibration on the ground with just the right frequency, like an opera singer breaks a wine glass...
I work at a shower door installation company here in Oregon. We have a werehouse with leterally 10's of thousands of pieces of tempered glass. Its not unusual to come in on Monday(I close and open the shop, so I know what it looked like before I left), and there will be a piece or two that randomly blew up. Tempered glass is really sensitive to temp changes as well. During the winter I have to be careful where I set the glass when I take it into the customers house, if its near a source of heat, the quick change will cause it to explode. On the opposite end of things, we stood a panel of 3/8 thick glass that was about 60"x60" on end and two of us held it up. Someone else got on the forklift and rammed it at full speed. lol. it didnt break until it fell over and hit the concrete floor.
Sounds to me that something riccochet'd(?) on it or something dropped on it. You'll never see any "witness" marks the way those back windows go into a million pieces
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