The Mighty Merc – Rear Quater Glass Replacment

So after a quick run out to Moonlight in early December to help a friend out with a shakedown run in his new rig, I managed to do what I hoped I wouldn’t do:

Last trail of the day heading back to the parking lot, I clipped a tree with my drivers side front wheel on a slightly off-camber sport which tipped me into a tree that I was trying to avoid. Derp!

So after knocking the glass out, and moving the boy’s car seat away from the now blown out window we headed home where I taped up the window until I had time to mess with it:

After a couple of weeks of looking at this:

The tinted Plexiglas I ordered showed up and I got to work fixing the hole in the back a bit better than the duct tape and cardboard job I did earlier in the month. I had planned on popping out the other window and doing that in plexi as well, but the thing did not want to come out at all. And since I am working in a rented, cold, dark garage, I did not want to have it blow out and try to clean up that mess in there.

On the plus side of the garage being cold, the adhesive used to hold the window in came off the body easily. Step one in this process was to remove pretty much all the trim in the rear:

Make up a template:

Transfer it onto the plexi:

Drill your holes and glue it in (Bolted in with some Stainless ¼” bolts). I used the 3M 08693 windshield adhesive as recommended:

Slap the interior back together and peel the backing off to call the job done. The tint actually matches the factory tint perfectly (80% Grey):

Sometime in the warmer future, I plan on painting the bolt heads black to blend in a bit better.

Why use plexi instead of Lexan? Well that’s because I found tinted Plexiglas quickly and, of course, as soon as I made the purchase of it I managed to find tinted Lexan for less :homer: So this will be a bit of an experiment, and I am betting that I wind up with Lexan later on. The acrylic, while more flexible than glass, was much more brittle that I was expecting it to be. But, I was also working with it in an unheated 15°F garage, so that could have been the reason for the brittleness.

For now, it is leaking less than the protrusions for my rear hatch hinges, so that works for me!

Edit 7-31-18:  Don’t use Plexiglas.  It isn’t holding up well over time an is doing odd stuff when it gets some heat on it.  I’ll either swap it out with some Lexan in the future or find another replacement window.  For now it is at least keeping most of the water out of the rear though so that does count for something!