Excursions in Car Repair: Day 1

Last Sunday night, some stoned-ass punk broke into my car. This person also broke into three other cars in my apartment complex, breaking one window in each car and basically taking whatever he could reach with one hand through shattered glass. From me, he took the GPS out of the glove compartment. From one lady, he took her Bible, which was easily confused with a purse in its nice carrying case. From another car, he took a GPS and left a perfectly nice, expensive laptop sitting on the back seat. We're all very lucky that this guy was clearly clueless, and probably inebriated.

At any rate, I was left without a front passenger window. Monday afternoon when I went to my car, I found a gaping hole in the glass and shards all over the front seats and floor. Fortunately, this is the only damage to the car. A quick phone consultation to my dad and I knew what I had to do: get a new piece of glass and put it in the door. Finances being what they are now, this would have to be done myself, but as it's a wholly mechanical repair, I can manage it. However, the nice weekend we just had was followed by a straight week of rain, and I didn't have a day pleasant enough to do open-air auto repair until today.

Today, I went out to the Pick-N-Pull in Rocklin to find a front passenger window for a 2000 Ford Escort sedan. This is a wholly new experience for me. First of all, they charge admission ($2), like at a county fair. They told me the car I wanted was on their lot, but made no guarantees that the part I wanted was there. They gave me a list of the cars currently on the lot that have a part that would fit mine and sent me on my way. Then I had to go wandering around the Ford section looking for an Escort. The first one I saw had the roof completely caved in, so no windows. A few rows along toward the back, I saw a nice red Escort, a 1999, which was perfect, and it had an intact front passenger window.

Did I mention that you're supposed to bring your own tools to a Pick-N-Pull? I didn't figure this out until I was there, a half hour from home, and had paid admission. So I get the door of the car open and I set about trying to pry the door panel off so I can reach the window attachments. I might have succeeded if I hadn't tried to be gentle about it. Most of the work was already done before I got there, but I wouldn't have gotten my part today except for a pair of nice men who walked by looking for a T-bird (or maybe a Mustang?). The up-down knob had to be removed and a few more screws had to be taken out. If I had just brought flathead and Phillips screwdrivers, I would have been fine. Oh well, one of them was kind enough to disassemble the door panel for me so we could see the window.

The glass slides up and down tracks on either side. It is held in place in a housing at the bottom with two more screws. The trickiest part of the repair was getting the door panel itself off, actually. A few more minor pieces obscured the view of the glass, and these were removed with simple unscrewing as well. After that, the window just slid right out the top. It's not even that heavy. So, after leaving the door panel and screws sitting inside the car (no need to reassemble, though I could have used the practice), I marched my new window up to the payment trailer. They were having a half-price sale, so it came to $17.42 (Looks like I picked the right week to have my car burglarized!).

Tomorrow: Day 2 - Putting a new window in my car. Pearl's gonna be so pretty!