My car had a vinyl top and there is some rust in the area around the winshield. With everything off except the winshield, I can see that the "lip" that the windshield sits on is rusted in the corners. I can stick a small screw driver in that area.

The roofs and posts themselves show no rust. It seems that what happened was that water go in and settled in that groove that the trims sit in.

However this is all hidden once the trims are on.

What tis the best way to approach this ?

BTW: what is the proper name for the grove in which the winshield sits ?

Windshield channel...thats what Ive always called it ;) If you dig deeper, Im afraid youre gonna find more rust, as that areas prone to rusting, and for the reason you stated. If I were you, Id pull out the windshield and find ALL of the bad spots. Hopefully there wont be much, but there usually is. And its not the type of thing that gets any better with time.

How do I go about fixing it ? Can I buy metal that is already preshaped for this ? Or could I steal metal from some kind of car that has similar windshield channel ?

You might be able to fabricate something, you could try it.

Heres a little bit on bending some metal, don't know if this will help, but its a starting point.

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sheet metal work

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The question about a sheet metal brake came up, so I put this together tonight. this piece is 18 gauge steel or .0478 or real close to 3/64 of an inch thick.

It took about an hour and a half including pictures to make this piece. This is stuff we can make at home, I have never worked in a sheet metal shop or ever used a sheet metal brake, so this is something us hobbist can do.

I used 1 1/4'' x 1 1/4'' angle iron, 1/4'' thick to do it. You could make stuff like this several feet long, I just did a hurry up on a short piece to demonstrate it.

Using angle iron clamped to a piece of sheet metal, put in a vice, you can bend it into curves a lot easier, so you can have 90% with a curve, theres a lot of ways to go on this.

I was going to make one more 90% bend, but it was getting late, and I don't have a problem with the neighbors, but hammering after eight at night, probably isn't a good thing.

I was in a hurry to do it, so the pictures aren't that good, but the piece you see, if you wanted to take a slapping spoon and a piece of angle iron, in your vice, you could make it perfect, but the pictures will show you the intent

http://www.2manitowoc.com/sheetmetal.html

Rob

If you need it round on the edge, maybe you find a piece of pipe the right size.

Try and bend about a six inch piece for practice, maybe something real thin so you can see how it goes.

Rob

I bend aluminum all the time at my job to make facias on homes and garage door frame covers etc.. So I am familiar witht the process. I guess I was just hoping that I could get some filler pieces that already have the shape. The aluminum is very thin so whe can use a bending table. I never trie to ben 16 guage metal with it however..

The shape of the windshield has a curvature to it it I would have to bend many pieces to fix the winshield area.

Depending on the area you need to replace, you could either fab up a piece, or like you said, cut out a channel from a similar car with the proper bends, shape, etc.

I've got the same problem that you have except I have to replace the entire upper and lower on the rear windshield and the entire upper on the front windshield on my '67 Camaro. Everything else has been replaced via other panel replacements or the original is good. I was planning on making two patterns for each segment and welding them together to make the channel. This eliminates making compound curves. I plan on going slow to keep down warping and I plan on making sure the two pieces are totally welded together (no gaps). I plan on doing this over Christmas/New Years (once I get my rotisserie built). I'll post some pics if it turns out well...if not...then?