Hey guys ChrisFix here!
Have you ever been driving down the road and then all of a sudden out of nowhere
*POP*
YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME
a rock kicks up and chips your windshield
Well don't you worry, because today I'm gonna show you everything that you need to know on how to repair a chip in your windshield
So we are gonna go from this unsightly chip right there
To this: A repaired and practically invisible chip, which not only looks good but will prevent the chip from spreading any further
And we'll be doing this windshield chip repair
using one of these store bought kits
so let me show you how.
Now there are bunch of different repair kits on the market.
The good thing is,
They all work on the same principal
What you're doing is you're gonna be using a glass resin
which we're gonna be injecting into the chip.
That resin then hardens,
which makes the chip a lot less visible and it also prevents it from spreading.
But before you go out and spend some money on one of these kits,
the first thing you wanna do is make sure your chip is repairable.
And this is actually pretty simple to do,
let's go check out the chip on the Mustang.
So, since we need to inject resin into the chip, there has to be a hole for the resin to pass through. So, run your fingernail over the chip and see if you can feel an indent,
in this case, I can.
You can also use the push pin that comes with the kit to do the same thing.
Also most chips are fixable
Have an airgap
Which, you could see up here and down here.
And the final test has to do with size
So if your chip is small enough to fit under a quarter
It's small enough to repair
So this chip is definitely repairable
But if your chip is larger than a quarter
It's going to be tough to fix with one of these store bought kits
And if your chip is way larger than a quarter
I wouldn't fix the windshield, I'd replace it
It's also generally recommended that you replace the windshield...
If you have any chips or cracks that are right on the edge of the windshield
The reason being is, your windshield is actually a structural part of your car
If you get into an accident...
The windshield helps transfer the energy throughout body and frame of the car
Also if you roll your car...
The windshield helps support the roof
So any chips or cracks along the edge of the windshield
As well as cracks that are longer then about 8 inches, weakens the glass
So it might be a good idea to replace the windshield
And I actually have a really cool example to show you
How windshield glass keeps you safe
So lets go check that out
Alright so I have 3 types of glass to show you
First, is your regular glass
This will not be found in cars, and here's why
Not only is regular glass weak and easy to break...
But when it does break, it breaks into these large, sharp shards
Imagine your windshield was made of this, and then you get into an accident. You'll have these things flying right at you.
Definitely not what you want
The next type of glass that we have is tempered glass
And this is found on cars. This is what your side windows, and rear windows are made of.
And let me show you why..
That is not breaking.
Holy smokes
And as you can tell, tempered glass is very strong.
That is why side and rear windows are made of tempered glass
But here's why it's not used for the windshield.
If you get something hard that has a point to it, maybe like a pebble or something
Or in this case, this little hammer right here
You just tap it..
The glass breaks up into these very small pieces
Now, well tempered glass is very strong, as you can see it's not good for the windshield
because any time a rock kicks up, it could shatter into a million pieces
And imagine that happening while you're driving
And that's why they make windshields out of laminated glass
And laminated glass is exactly as it sounds
So, in between this glass is a piece of plastic
And that plastic holds both of these pieces of glass together
And let me show you why the windshield is made out of laminated glass
So I got my hammer..
And after hitting this piece of glass with the hammer, you can see.. check it out
We did damage the glass. It is broken.
But it's still one whole piece.
That lamination in between holds the glass together, so you don't end up with a bunch of glass shards on your lap.
It also prevents things from penetrating the windshield, like if you hit a deer.
And I mean... we could keep hitting this...
Until it's really weak
So that lamination is really holding this glass together. It's still one sheet.
And that's why your windshield is made of laminated glass.
And that's also why we're able to repair it.
So let me show you how..
and here are the two most common windshield repair kits.
On this side, this kit is good because it does multiple chips. But it doesn't pull a vacuum.
In this case, this kit will actually pull a vacuum, to help get the air out of the chip.
But it only does one chip.
They're both around the same price.
I'll be sure to link both of them in the description, so you can easily find them
And today we're going to be using this chip kit because I have 1 chip.
And I like to be able to pull a vacuum.
It helps remove all the air bubbles so our chip is crystal clear.
So let's get started.
And in order to get started, you want to make sure that your car is in the shade
I have the shade of this tree right here so that's perfect
and the windshield isn't too hot; it is a very hot day out.
If it's cold out, you might want to move your car into the garage if you have one
If you don't have one, turn the car on, and turn the heat on inside
so that your windshield warms up.
You want a warm windshield but you don't want it to be in the direct sunlight.
So now it's time to fix that chip right there.
I put a piece of cardboard on the back of the glass so we can easily see the chip
and we're gonna be using everything supplied in the kit.
The first thing you want to do, is you want to get your safety pin
And go and pick out any of the broken glass inside the chip.
Next: Open the alcohol wipe, and clean the area around the chip so that we have a good bonding surface for the adhesive disc.
And a quick tip: When fixing chips, make sure you don't rest your body weight on the windshield.
You don't want to press too hard on the glass because that could cause the chip to spread.
So next, we're going to be using this adhesive disc.
So just peel off one side of the adhesive, and you want this tab facing up.
So center the disc over the hole in the glass, just like that.
Then push on the disc and make sure it's stuck on there good.
Now we can peel off the top of the disc, revealing another adhesive layer.
And get the pedestal, and center it so it's right over the middle of the disc.
Then press down around the whole pedestal, and make sure it's stuck on there securely.
Now we're going to add resin to our pedestal.
But some of that resin could leak out and make a mess.
So what we're going to do is we're going to grab some tape
and put that tape down and just fold it over this edge
so that any resin that leaks out gets caught by the tape.
Next: Grab the resin dropper and twist off the cap
And then we can add the resin to the pedestal, all the way to the top.
Good
Now with the pedestal filled, we can get our syringe, and make sure the plunger is pressed all the way in.
With this pressed in, now we can push the syringe into the pedestal.
So now this is the cool part.
What you're going to do is you're going to put one hand on the syringe and hold the syringe down
And you're going to pull the plunger up.
You should feel a lot of resistance, which means it's working. There is a vacuum being pulled.
And you see that tab on the plunger?
That's what we want to pull it to. That last tab there. And then lock it in place on the top.
Now this syringe is a vacuum chamber
And it's sucking the air out of the chip.
Let me show you from the inside.
Inside, look at all that air being sucked out of the chip.
That's exactly what we want.
So now we want to wait until we don't see any air bubbles getting sucked out.
But in the meantime..
A little trick to help remove even more trapped air from the chip is to knock on the glass around the chip.
Not too hard, because we don't want the chip to spread,
but hard enough to help vibrate any air out because any air left in the chip is going to make that chip visible.
So this trick helps a lot to make it clear.
Now once the bubbles stop coming out of the chip,
we're ready to move on to the next step.
So right now, the resin is still down in this pedestal.
But right here, this is all the air that was sucked out of that chip.
So for the next step, we're gonna hold down the pedestal, and carefully remove the syringe.
And then, we're going to just simply put it back in.
What that did, was allow air into the syringe so this isn't a vacuum anymore.
And now we're going to compress this plunger, and the more we compress it, the more pressure we're building in here
which is going to force that resin deep into the chip.
Once this is pressurized,
we want to lock it in place with that top tab
And let's see what that chip looks like from inside the car.
Awh man, this is looking better already.
But you can see there's still a little spot right there that isn't clear.
That should go away after a few minutes, and the instructions say to leave it for about 20 minutes,
but I have a little trick on how to get rid of it.
What you want to do is you want to carefully push the plunger in just a little bit more
Not too much because if you add too much pressure, you'll blow out this disc.
And then you'll get resin everywhere and you'll have to start over.
Don't ask how Iknow that.
But once you have this compressed just a little bit more,
Tap around the chip to help vibrate the resin deeper into the chip.
And check that out. That looks awesome!
This is almost perfect, and way better than what we started with.
So after we let this sit for a while, we can remove the syringe,
just do this slowly, good.
And then we can grab our razor, and we're going to remove the pedestal and disc by sliding the razor underneath, and working our way around them both.
And then we can peel them both up. And the pedestal's coming off, so i'll remove that.
And then peel the rest of the disc off.
Good.
And although it's tempting, don't try to wipe up your resin with a paper towel. You'll just contaminate the resin.
Instead, get your resin dropper,
and put 1 drop right on the chip.
Then get your curing strip, and you want to put it at the bottom here, bend it, and press it up against your resin.
That'll force all the air out.
And to get even more air out, use your razor and squeegee out any bubbles.
Holy smokes that is looking so good. Wait 'til you see this.
And we are almost done, I can not wait to see how this chip came out.
But right now, we don't want to touch this. We want to let this sit and cure.
And because we're in the shade, it takes about an hour to cure. Same goes for if it's a cloudy day, it'll take an hour to cure.
If you want, you can move your car into the sun, and then it only takes 15 minutes for it to cure,
But i'm not gonna move the car.
So in an hour we'll see the results.
1 hour later, let's go see how we did.
And I just want to mention real quick:
Since our resin is cured by UV sunlight,
if you want you can actually use one of these UV flashlights to cure the resin.
Now i'm mentioning this because thi s is what the professionals do.
It's quick, and some of you guys work in a garage, so you don't have sunlight, so you could use this.
Just wanted to mention that real quick.
But we waited the full hour in the shade, so let's remove the curing strip.
So when we remove this curing strip, we don't want to just get the blade and pop it off.
Because if you pop it off, you could pull the resin out of the chip and it won't look good.
So what we're going to do, is we're going to hold down the resin where our chip is,
And just get our blade underneath
around the the edge.
Just try to get as much as you can lifted up without lifting up the area where the chip is.
Now we only have a little area to pull out
what we're going to do is we're gonna twist it.
Just like that.
Now we have a layer of resin on here that we want to clean off.
And holy smokes this looks crystal clear.
I can't even get the camera to focus on this area right here. This is where the curing strip was.
And our chip is right there.
So because we have a layer of resin on here,
What we're gonna do now is get a razor, and scraped it perpendicular to the glass.
The razor will scrape away the resin, but it won't scratch the glass.
So just scrape away the resin so it looks clear, and the chip is even with the glass.
Man look at that, check out this before and after.
Here's before:
And here's after:
What a difference!
I'm gonna remove this tape
And I know the windshield has to get cleaned, but look at that. Let's go check out inside the car.
So here's the before. You can see we can easily find the chip and it sticks out, and it's kind of distracting.
And this is the after and wait until you see this.
Or wait 'til you can't see it.
This is awesome.
So if we look, you can kind of get it right there, it's hard to pick up on the camera,
But there's a little mark. Yeah I think you can kind of see that right there.
It's a slight mark and at the right angles you can kind of see it, even the camera you can see it's focusing in and out can't see it.
So I mean, while you're driving, you're never gonna be able to see that.
So that is a job well down. If you can't tell, i'm really happy with it.
Alright, now that's how you repair a chip in your windshield
And I think these results speak for themselves. This came out awesome.
And I hope this video helps you get similar results.