bp944

My windshield is slowly spidering to its eminent demise and my college budget remains a college budget. I know you can get sheets of polycarbonate for quite cheap and there's plenty of nascar ebay sellers that have tearoffs for cheap. My main concern is bending the lexan. Can you take a stock windshield and clamp the lexan down and slowly use a heat gun until it takes the windshields shape? The rear hatch seems like its too drastically shaped to clamp it at first so any ideas there? Oh and I live in North Dakota so the option of getting a used 944 windshield ends up being quite expensive.

PorscheDoc

My experience is that lexan will crack in the extreme cold which you will see in the winter in ND (I'm originally from the Jamestown area). Also, i can't see it being any cheaper than just putting in a windshield. I think we have been doing them for around 200 bucks (new, non oem), so they aren't outrageous. College budget sucks, but lexan isn't the cheap solution it might appear to be.

87 944 C

new 944 windshield is about 650 bucks, i found one in a junkyard, they wanted 400

for the rear hatch, don't bend it to form, mount it so that it closely match the flatest part, then with a heat gun warm it so that it naturally starts to cover the rest of the window. when done let it cool, then trim the excess off.

M758

Should be able to get a windshield for an early car for $250 installed. New.

JonH

Optically, that will be a mess though. Unless you thermal form it in an oven you're not going to be impressed with using a heat gun. I work around optical plastics myself and have tried this on a much smaller scale. For a street car it's the last thing I would do. I use a Lexan hatch on my 924S track car and still drive it on the street once and a while, not ideal but advantage = 20lbs.

87 944 C

yea, the oven would be best, but how many ovens can fit a 944 hatch?

bp944

I drive a 1987 944, would an early windshield work? If the cost difference is $50, it would be worth my time and money to do lexan especially for the weight loss. I also love DIY projects because it just makes the car even more unique to me. If I were to take a piece of straight lexan and just secure it as the front window would it bend to fit or should I also look at bending it? Would a pizza shop have a large enough oven for a hatch?

Porschedoc, How exactly do they crack? Does the cold make them brittle or do they just crack on their own? If I were to secure in such a way that it could expand and contract, would that solve the issue?

PorscheDoc

Exactly, same experience.

Scrape snow and ice off lexan once, and you won't be able to see through the scratches, let alone the beating they take on the road.

87 944 C

only difference between early and late 944 windshield, no antena vs embedded antena, and inset vs flush.

Van

This.

This, I believe, makes it a different size.

bp944

I plan on keeping the car covered or in a garage during the winter so ice scrapers won't be an issue. Wouldn't the tear-offs keep the window protected from the ice scraper?

M758

lexan on a street car is rather stupid. Heck I won't even put it on my race car because I don't want to deal with it.

bp944

Why is it rather stupid? Its stronger and with tear-offs it shouldn't scratch but that's only what I've read. I'm by no means a knowledgeable car person.

alex

If I were you, I'd just listen to PorscheDoc. And Joe. And Jon.

Tight as money is, you will find that this particular DIY job will end up costing more when you finally have break down and buy a stock windshield after investing money and time into a project that was never going to work in the first place.

F40LM

I am force to admit you probably are going to be better off bititng the bullet on this one. But if you want to try the bending of plexiglass methis you could try laying the plexiglass on the hatch glass and laying medium weight sandbags on the edges. Heat from under the plexi and let the weight of the sandbags bend the plexi down moving out as you go.

As far as cheap windshield replacement, try the local PCA chapter and get contact info on the 944 guys. See if one has a parts car he would let you have for cheap. Locate a windshield guy willing to do the swap around for you for cheap and meet him at the parts car with your car. Remember you may very well have to purchase a new surround.

Good luck.