Uncle pgregston,

Do you mean to replace the windshield yourself or go to any of the crappy auto windshield replacement stores?

Pilkington and all glass you can buy in the U.S. is all Made in Chinese junk glass.

No longer can you get:
Sekurit-Saint Gobain - Stock on my Made in Sweden 1991 Volvo 240.
Trempex
Sunex
... and I forget the other Europa OEM auto glass makers for Volvo 140-164.

... and the whole host of quality auto glass made in Europa you may find in RWD Volvos.

I have a Pilkington on my 1992 240 GL sedan. The glass is thin, soft, and not optically as good as what you could get with Europa auto glass.

The Pilkington glass has a plastic piece of crap trim, in that trim is a channel to provide a feeble anchor for the stupid and narrow reveal between teh glass edge, across the span of the windshield pan and pinch weld, to over the inner edge of the a-pillars, roof line, and such.

If you have a factory windshield, it is retained to the car body using sticky, soft, pliable (unless really old or weathered) butyl rubber tape gasket material.

The U.S. auto glass industry is crap.

They all use urethane adhesives. That means all legacy butyl rubber must be wholly removed from the windshield pan pinch weld. They must NOT breach the paint. If you have a failed finish and rust underneath, you must make an exhaustive rust repair to seal and protect your 140-160.

The stupid, crappy American auto glass installer industry uses urethane adhesives as they are cheap and requires little skill to use.

You'll be told: "We use urethane to secure the windshield to the car to improve on passenger cabin strength."

What are you driving? Some piece of crap American or Asian automobile? Some sort of Ford Explorer that when it rolls over on the roof, the roof pillars can't support the vehicle weight, so the roof collapses, and kills the occupants. Search the i-net. It's true.

I hate Ford, GM, and Chrysler. GM killed Saab, and Ford almost killed Volvo. Well, they did. On all American brand automobiles, so much is made in China.

A Windshield, in the days of 240 manufacturing, floats in the pinch weld. Floats on the butyl tape gasket. You may have several stops, made of durable plastic, what some may call windshield trims in the days of butyl rubber, so the windshield does not slid down to the bottom of the windshield pan. When you have an accident that deforms the passenger cabin and roof pillars, the windshield breaks outward.

The windshield does not and should not be used to add strength to the auto passenger compartment roof line.

If you install it yourself, you'll want a complete set of Volvo 140-160, or, perhaps the 240 factory windscreen trim collected from a junkyard.

The Pilkington plastic trim, to which the surrounding reveal secures, is to narrow to bridge the span between windshield edge and the sheet metal around like the A-pillars and roof line.

I'd not know if you can secure a factory Volvo 240 windshield trim set to an after market Pilkington or other windshield. You may be able to. Or, the windshield installation tech can fabricate a reveal themselves using a synthetic rubber T-trim strip. (Profile is T-shaped when looking at it in cross-section.) The windshield adhesive is used to anchor the T-strip to the urethane adhesive sealant gasket.

Questions?

Hope that helps.

I replaced the TPS on my 1990 240 DL Wagon today! Works!
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The Mightiest and Most Powerful Volvo Forever: The Volvo 164.