Dont leave home without the contact and duct tape

Hi Geoff

That was a real pity that you had that trouble.

Even though you were prepared, it is general knowledge that with any trip towing on dirt roads, a piece of cardboard over the back window will stop this happening. You will be surprised the number of vehicles we have come across over the years and had not taken any precautions and suffered the same fate as you.

All the best and you would have had a great trip.


Cheers



Stephen

Same thing happened to us, on the Birdsville Track, wrapped the window with glad wrap and duck tape, we had the rear window on the Parado replaced in Longreach. After that the lad listened to dad and covered the window with cardboard. Expensive lesson.

Apart from the usual tools and spares i always pack a couple of rolls of duct tape, some fencing wire, several largish plastic bags and a selection of zip ties. It's amazing what you can cobble together to get yourself out of a sticky (pardon the pun) situation using these common articles and a large plastic bag (garbage bag) with three holes cut for your head and arms makes a pretty good makeshift rain coat.

Cheers
Pop

Some clear polycarbonate sheeting from Bunnings, cut to size and taped on works for us. Make sure to tape all around so dust does not get in, and then you can still see through the rear window.

Cheers,

Val.

Geoff,
If you plan to continue to travel off road it may be worth your while looking at a product called a "rear window saver" Loon them up in google and have a chat with Jeff.

Driving through near Gascoyne junction we had a large rock bounce off the trailer and actually sconed the dog in the melon, who was sitting in the back of the Prado.

We'd driven about 300kms off road, had a cup of tea then drove off and the wife said, Do you reckon we should tape the.... Bloody big bang.

Had half a roll of insulation tape and a big green rubbish bag and limped into Carnarvon.

Insurance covered the rear screen luckily because it was $1,100. We've learned our lesson!

g'day Geoff
bit of good quality polycarb sheet ,cut to size stuck to rear screen in about 10 positions with an industrial quality double lock adhesive velcro,can be removed easily and stored in the vehicle if not needed,when no longer needed warm up the velcro on the window with the bosses hair dryier,peel it off .
cheers
Blue

how do you think we will go in our colorado with no canopy,is our rear window in danger,towing a camper with stoneguard and mudflaps,thanks

The same rocks that hit the rear window from ct also hit oncoming cars if you don't slow down. It's amazing how many ct's we have had coming our way that have showered us in rocks.

On our first outback trip we got 5 stone chips all caused by oncoming ct's who wouldn't slow down for oncoming traffic. Now I get right of the road and stop when I see them coming.

Thanks everybody for your replies. We will certainly be covering up next time. We also saw quite a few other cars with boken windows on this trip and noticed alot of cars with the corflute attached with velcro. Seems to be the way to go.
Sue

One thing that seems to have gone out of fashon with laminated screens is stone guards......they seem to have gone the way of the sunvisor.

Back in the 60's my old man made a roll up stone guard form fly screen for the morris oxford that strapped between the sunvisor and the vent grill and arround the pillar.

Remember in the 60's and 70's a simple picnic outing ment driving on dirt roads for significant distances and at speed...hell some of our major highways where unsealed.

Not so long ago it was common to see mesh stone guards on the front of cars up the country and on the fronts of caravan rigs.

I even remember a friend of ours having a moulded perspex stone guard for his mini that stuck on with suction cups

Perhaps thay are not such a bad idea.

A laminated screen may not smash from a simgle rock like the old zone tuffened screens, but a decent sized rock will still cost you a replacement

One thing that might be worth investigating for the rear screen is security film.

I sold a bit of this stuff back in the 90's.
It is appied to the inside of the glass and is like realy heavy window tint.
I sold a product called "profelon" but 3M had a similar product.

The heavier profelon stuff was very impressive, it made ordinary window glass almost unsmachable......if ya took to it with a pick, it would poke a hole in it but the remaining payne would stay in tact.

It made even ordinary glass very much stronger and very much harder to damage......
It came in clear and tints.

cheers