Broken Drivers Door Window

I was out in my shop the other day and looked at my 71 Challenger convertible. I walked around to the drivers door and the window had shattered and 95% of the glass was inside the bottom of the door. I had the car out a couple of weeks prior on a cool evening and had the window rolled down to the stops. I never put it up and my shop inside temperature got into the low 80s a couple of days. Shop stays locked and I was the only one in and out. Would expansion of the window in the warm temps cause this? I see AMD and a couple of other places sell the glass - any one better than the other or do they all sell the same repop glass? Hagerty is handling the claim and they're sending a check to cover it. I may end up installing the glass as no one here seems to want to do it. Thanks for any info.
Terry

Tempered glass does weird things....

When you have the door panel off, check any metal edges that might me touching the glass ( in the windows entire up and down cycle) and make sure any area the edges of the glass set on or ride on do not touch metal.. Check for any rubber/fabric covered metal "guides" to make sure they have not worn down to metal, which is making "metal to glass contact"..

Remember that the weak point in tempered glass is the glass edge...

Use a shop vac to remove all the broken glass at the bottom of the door, but remember that some fasteners might have ended up in and with the broken glass. You might want to clean out your shop vac before using it and then go through it afterwards, making sure you don't lose any parts. The broken glass cannot scar you, but it is still sharp and can cut, so be careful....

In shopping around for a new window ,I see that the price varies quite a bit. I can get a window for $250 -$300 with up to $90 shipping which seems high for glass. There's a company call Auto City Classic Glass which offers the window for $139 plus about $25 shipping. Has anyone used them? I checked the window stabilizers and they have plenty of the felt material on them. I'll be installing new window hardware. Again, any input on Auto City Classic Glass would be appreciated. Thanks.
Terry

Received my window from Auto City Classic Glass and it arrived packaged very well. I measured the thickness with a dial indicator and it's the same thickness as the original. Of course it's not PPG and date coded but all the holes are drilled correctly, it's not wavy and appears to be good quality and has the DOT marking. Just wanted to give an update.
Terry

Good info,

Any labeling indicating who the manufacturer is?

Glad to hear that the glass was the right thickness. Is it clear or tinted? If tinted would like to hear how well that matched.

As for why your glass broke Tempered Glass is super stronger as long as the surface is not scratched. Once scratched it becomes a time bomb. Any little load, stress or bump can then get it to explode.

Possibly when it was rolled down, there was excess pressure on the rubber stop. And being a vert, the body flex may have compounded it as well. I have bought windshields from the company before and they met the needs. Good to know they have vert glass as well.

My glass is clear. I noticed when I retrieved the parts from the bottom of the door that there should be spacers (rubber) around the metal screws that pass through the holes in the glass. They had deteriorated and fallen apart. I've bought some plastic spacers and rubber spacers I'll install in the new glass to prevent the metal from contacting the glass. The window rail washers had also disappeared due to time. I'll install either the plastic spacers or rubber ones now.
The glass is made by PMK out of Thailand and has a DOT516 number. Attached is a pic of the label on the glass. If I decide I want a PPG labeled window, I'll buy one and store it.
Terry

I'm hoping that you're going to do all of that to the other door also...

I certainly will. I already have the panel off the passengers door to look at the window and noticed the deterioration of the rubber and plastic parts there so I'll remove one piece of hardware at a time to replace the pieces that have gone bad. Thanks.
Terry

Windshields are the usual culprits for being thinner today.. Your tempered doorglass was just a piece of glass that was heated,formed and then tempered..
A WS is two pieces of glass laminated together with a .060 interlayer.. I think the thinner WS's are due to most of the glass today is metric sized....