uPVC window broken aligning widget

If you think you can buy/make a suitable replacement part, drill the rivets out of that metal rail?

First find a part.

It looks like a push fit into the rail, but done at assembly time. I'd cut the old one out, then cut the replacement to remove one side of the part which slots into the rail, then fit the new part and hold it in place with a countersunk self-tapper through the flat bit. Maybe a bit of glue, too.

I think I would try and repair that with araldite before doing anything else. That component is probably not uPVC and it has gone brittle with age. Replacing it might involve removing the window anyway.

It might have failed because someone has attempted to break in by levering out the hinge side of the window.

Thanks for all of the comments. No sign of any attempted break in, and this broken piece is on a number of windows (some ground floor, some first floor).

Don't know if you can make (cast?) a new piece, but it looks as if you have to drill off the "pop" rivet heads, remove the channel, remove or replace the plactic piece, and then replace the hing using new rivets (the tail of the old ones will have fallen to the bottom or the PVC extrusion). The only worry might be "Is there some sort of steel behind the PVC extrusion that the rivets use, which might fall off when you drill the heads off?". Perhaps there are alternative fixing possibilities.

How does the plastic thing help in closing the windows tightly?

There is a tag on the opening casement that engages with it and as the window is pulled shut it levers the hinge side into the rubber gasket draught excluder. This is necessary with reflex hinges to make an air-tight joint and also to stop burglars simply pulling hard at the hinge side and thereby releasing the roller catches on the lock side.

Is this a kind of tapered bit that the little lug on the closing handle rides up as it is rotated? Most of these tend to be riveted on or sometimes just melted on by two lugs being melted in a recess behind the inside face. Brian

It looks 3-D-printable to my untrained eye...

Thomas Prufer

Depends how much leverage the closing mechanism puts on it, also looks castable in resin to me, has the O/P got any unbroken ones to make a silicone mould from?

No, Brian, it's a complicated moulding with grooves to take a mechanism.

Yes, 3D printable and castable. All I have to do is remove from the metal runner.

I'd say +1 to drill out pop rivet (or rivets), remove runner, pull thingy from end.

Replace runner with new plastic thing, insert new pop rivet, pop the rivet.

(If the head of the rivet tool won't fit into the runner: in a pinch I have put a few nuts loose on the stem of the pop rivet as an improvised spacer between rivet head and tool face.)

Thomas Prufer