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Can't clamp both windscreen lock assemblies due to thickness of new rubber seal.

Any suggestions as to how I compress the rubber seal (make it thinner)

OR

do I trim it to size?

Col

Have you adjusted the latch catches full up? Their mounting holes are elongated for that purpose.

Wes, et al,
I ran into the same problem on my jeep. I had elongate the holes more and in the end also cut down the old gasket to be thinner. It ocurred to me that perhaps the wrong catches had been used for the latching/locking mechanism but I'm not entirely sure of the problem. After cutting down the old gasket and extending the holes a bit I was able to get one side latched down, but it's TIGHT.
By the way, Fort McCoy, WI is a real garden spot. So to speak. And it's wicked humid and hot up here!

Latches are adjusted as far as they can go.

Will play with it a bit more before having to cut the gasket seal thinner.

Col

I just drove by Ft. McCoy this evening on my way home from madison WI. It was quite pleasant compared to Mississippi or Louisiana right now!

Wes, you've got me there!
My first summer in college I worked as a commercial diver (for two summers). I was part of a crew sent down to Morgan City, LA to retro-fit an oil rig supply ship over to a salvage boat. I spent about a month in June/July working in a steel boat yard there. I think I actually came down with heat exhaustion there too!
So, you're right about that but coming from MA where it's in the low 60's (and humid/raining) it has been a temp shock. It's beautiful country-side though!
I'm home on emergency leave until Thursday, when it gets really warm out there so think of us in the field next week.
In the meantime, I guess I could keep grinding out longer bolt slots to enable the latches to slide higher. Hate to do it though on what may be an original tub. I decided to cut my old gasket down and save the new one I got for later, when I may have things further along when I get back from my deployment. Thanks for all your advice and tidbits!

One more thing to consider. If the hinges have been bent on the A1 and the arms on the M38 then the windshield's base can contact the cowl at the wrong angle and in some cases that angle makes contact with the cowl much sooner than it's suppose to so you have that first contact edge really tight before the the other edge is even close.

Wes,
I think that may be part of my problem, that the windshield arms are bent too flat. I was looking at Ken Smith's pictures and it seemed to me that was the case. How best can that be fixed? Thanks!

If your arms are too flat then that will bring the front edge into contact too early with the cowl making the rear darn near impossible to latch down. There are not any truly safe ways to straighten it with the glass installed. If you haven't painted the tubes yet you could remove the arm pivot bolts and latch the windshield down. If she then latches easily you know the problem for sure. At this point with her latched down you could heat each arm and slowly bend it untill the povot bollt will slide in.

Wes, what's the best way to heat those arms? I can get the pivot bolts in but I think that the arms are off by maybe an inch. The windshield glass is in there and it's all painted but if the right/best way to fix the problem, aside from buying a whole new windshield frame (expensive) is the heat the arms I'll give that a shot when I get home from overseas. I imagine I'll need to repaint the whole thing too. For now, though, with the cut-down gasket and the "adjustment" of the latch holes I have one side latched down. It's tight but it holds...

Where did you get the cowl seal? Lots of junk on the market. MWM and AJP spent the $ and had our own tooling made. We guarantee the fit to be dead on. Even has the original makers mark in it.
www.midwestmil.com
John

Hello John,
Haven't heard from you for a while. You probably missed it but his old seal is the same thickness. The arms on the windshield are bent and the seal is hitting the cowl front edge first which leaves the back edge way to high, not that the seal is too thick.

A torch and some gentle gradual reshaping. Some bracing across the windshield like 2x4's and a piece of pipe about 2 foot long that will slide over the end of the tubes should work When you're done just strip or sand the bottom 10 or 12 inches of the tubes and repaint them.

Wes,
That sounds pretty easy. Thanks! I'll "enlist" (dragoon) a couple of friends to help me out with that when I get back. The rubber seal I got was from AJP too, for John of Midwest Military.
It matches the existing one I have perfectly but I began to suspect that the arms were flattened a bit as I looked at other pictures.
Thanks again. Heading back to Fort McCoy on Thursday AM so I'll say "hi" as I fly over and into LaCrosse.