Forum Discussion

gwheel's avatar
gwheel
Explorer
Aug 23, 2014

Windshield popping out

I recently purchased a 3790 Residency by MHC. When I leveled the unit with the levelers the right hand or passenger side upper right hand corner of the windshield popped out, did not notice until I was leaving the campground, but was able to get home ok. I called safelite, and a fellow stopped to take a look at it, and said he would not touch it, and that I should take it to a large rv dealer with a body shop. I noticed the rubber seal was not glued in and I asked him about this, and he said that, the style with the bead lock, which is what this is did not require glue. I asked him to show me the bead lock tool that he had, and he did. I ordered one on Amazon, and decided to tackle this myself. The tool came and I slipped everything back into place. I started to play with the levelers again and same thing happened, so thought about this for a couple of days, and decided to make DIY, clamp, out of a 1 inch wide piece of steel, available at lowes or HD. I cut this to about 4 in long, and ground some teeth into one end, then about 1/2 inch from the toothed end I bent it nearly double. I then drilled a 3/16 in hole in the other end. I then bent and formed this to catch the rubber in the very upper right side (this is inside the MH). Push this toothed end into the rubber, and drill a hole thru the body and place a 3/18 screw, and nut and washer such, with a little sealant under the head of the screw, and fender washer, tighten, and make sure that the clamp teeth are somewhat embedded into the rubber seal. Now I know if you have a brand new MH, or one that has a large value, you might not want to do this, but in my case, the unit is about 12 yrs old, and this was a quick and dirty fix, that worked well, and you can barely see the head of the screw, just above the windshield on the pass side. I painted the screw head, and it is hard to see. The bead lock tool was about 13 bucks shipped. Inside you cannot see this clamp, it is completely hidden by the molding/trim. George
  • Thanks Dennis, I certainly hope it don't break, time will tell. The clamp just catches the rubber seal midway of the corner, and does not touch the glass in any way. There most certainly is some flex, but I guess with 38 ft its has to have some. I actually did this in June, and it does seem to be working better than I thought. I use the levelers in manual, and a bit more carefully. Never had a unit with levelers before. As long as it continues to work I will be happy. Also like I posted originally this is not for everybody, but does seem to work for me. The Best, Geo
  • Executive wrote:
    So, now when you level the coach, instead of the windshield popping out, it'll simply break...

    IMHO, your 'fix' is only temporary. Something's wrong with how you're leveling. Stabilizing your coach should not cause the frame to flex that much....Dennis


    I think Dennis nailed it -- the issue is the fact that the Coach is not being leveled evenly, thus causing the flex in the chassis and pushing the window out. The fix will last until the window breaks. So while the $5.00 fix is a good TEMPORARY fix, until you correct the leveling issue, you will continue to have problems/stress. The next fix will be $500+ to replace the broken window.

    Travel Supreme had this problem and there fix was a $3,500 number of welded cross members as, the leveling system would over flex on extremely un-level sites.

    JMHO,
  • So, now when you level the coach, instead of the windshield popping out, it'll simply break...

    IMHO, your 'fix' is only temporary. Something's wrong with how you're leveling. Stabilizing your coach should not cause the frame to flex that much....Dennis
  • One I had years ago would flex enough under some leveling situations, to prevent the entry door from opening easily.
  • I would have never guessed that a coach would flex enough to pop a window.