Several weeks ago I found myself going down the interstate and noticed in my rear view mirror the front right side window flapping in the breeze supported only by the bottom hinge
.The good news is that nothing was broken. I had noticed a few times that over rough roads the locking mechanism in the hinge has a way of working loose and I have since made sure to check the
windows every day we drive. Still, I should have fixed the problem rather than putting it off as losing a window would make for a very bad day. This might help if you are having this issue..
Despite the problem the
windows and hardware appear to be good quality. Designed essentially to allow a flat panel of glass to be used in a slightly curved surface..ie a car roof. Hence the use of a very thick rubber seal. The hinges and latch mechanism open to make the glass panel removable a feature not needed in the trailer application and partially responsible for the window coming loose.
The problems with the
windows occur where the curvature is more than the window is designed for. To get a proper seal, excess force is needed to close the window which puts the hardware under more stress than it can take. The trapezoidal shape of the front and rear widows was intentional and done to reduce the amount of curvature the window needs to conform to…apparently not enough as the hinge issue seems to affect these windows the most on my
Oxygen.
If anyone else has attempted to come up with a fix please post it .. as for mine this is what I did.
I wanted to stay away from modifying the locking mechanism as there is no easy adjustment on any of the hardware other than shimming or cutting back the FG. In my case two of the locking handles are quite a bit more difficult to close and moving the hardware slightly might have solved this. Instead I focused on securing the hinges and tried to come up with something simple yet not look like a diy afterthought.
I made 12 small Lexan tabs (do not use acrylic). These measure 1/8” thick by ¾” long and approx 11/16” wide. The width fits the recess between the raised ends of the mount and I made sure the fit was accurate to make spotting the tap drill and mounting the tab easier. I used a pan head machine screw 8-32 NC X ½”. The tab when mounted overlaps the locking mechanism by about 3/16” which is enough to cover the mechanism when the window is in the open and closed position.