Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Chipped windscreen

I do not disagree with what Glassman says, however I will add that you should not delay getting it repaired as the glass impact area will be in stress and a change of temperature for example or a jolt could cause the chip to become a crack.

There is no pressure in the break as one contributor has suggested and there is certainly no stress as such. I have seen windscreens with chips that are YEARS old. How do you explain that?

Welcome to Talk Morgan. What are you driving?

I will leave that to an expert to explain. I am just saying what my experience has been, including leaving a chip on my daughters windscreen overnight to find the chip has grown into a crack which resulted in a need or a new windscreen.

Not driving a Morgan, I registered to make a comment on a thread I since can't find!

The long and short of my connection with Morgan is that an Aero 8 had been abused by a windscreen firm and I was called in to help put it right. This forum was suggested to me by the owner of that car.

Welcome to the forum Glassman. It is always interesting to have knowledgeable professional comment.

Would it be true to say that a small surface chip that shows no sign of surrounding cracks would not need drilling but that a deeper chip that has started a crack would need to be driiled at the end of the crack to stop it progressing?

Good stuff. A couple of years ago members here were reporting cracks on their screens mostly if I remember correctly in the top right hand side of the screen as you look from the front and we were struggling to work out what was causing the cracks. Some would occur overnight whilst parked in garages. We never really got a good explanation for these issues. Would you by any chance have any background to those issues?
The assumptions being made was that there was a bad batch of windscreens as we seldom hear about these issues now.

Welcome to TM Glassman....it's good to hear from experts on here.
As Wirewheel said, there were a number of mainly Sport models and the odd Plus4 Supersport, that ended up with cracked windscreens. On mine, the crack developed during the day from the top near side corner and spread to the bottom of the screen within half a day. No stone chips, the screen had survived 18 months from new. The crack must have started overnight. Morgan blamed it on incorrect tensioning of the hood....the hood hadn't been used for months!

What's annoying is that you cannot source a new heated screen glass. The manufacturer will only supply to the factory and the factory will only supply a complete screen ready mounted to the frame. Ok....the insurance company foot the bill but it hardly seems fair on them.

A surface chip, or 'pit' is not structural damage however it is still better to have it seen to as it can (dependent on its position) be a distraction and/or damage wiper blades.

Drilling the end of a crack is a bit of an old technique which is rarely used nowadays. In fact, it would be fair to say that it is probably misused if anything. A good repairer will know how to manipulate a break/crack so that the repair resin can penetrate it.

Be weary of anyone using heat whilst the resin is being injected. The damage might look good (or better) in the first couple of hours, but will revert to how it looked before the repair over the next day or two. Very common.

A very interesting thread.