Weatherstripping - Part 1 - 03/09/2015

Now that the dash work is complete, time to move on to one more important piece of missing hardware: the weatherstripping for the doors. What did exist was hard as a rock and dry and cracked, it wasn't keeping noise or water out. And it's cheap and easy to replace, makes me wonder why more people don't do this.



Removing the old weatherstripping is fun.



The channel is pretty crusty, a small screw driver pulls most of it out without too much effort.



Last bit comes out some coaxing.



The junk weatherstripping lies on the floor. The OEM setup had this metal wire in it...



The weatherstripping for the roof rail goes in pretty simply. Attach the 3 plastic push pins in at the bottom, line them up, and start sliding the weatherstripping into the channel. Clear the metal tabs up top to keep the door glass from blowing out at speed. A small dab of adhesive every so often can be used if needed, I didn't apply any just yet.



Quarter window is done. The rubber had an extra 7-8" on it that needs to be trimmed and slid back down in the channel behind the quarter, I left an extra 2" on.



Quarter window closes with ease and seals.



Time to move on to the door weathstripping. Rubber is laid out.



The old door rubber is dry rotted and shot too.



...and missing chunks too.



Door panel is pulled off to remove all of the old rubber. I found the extra screws and tabs that weren't hooked up to the door panel. I also took this opportunity to remove as much dirt and gunk from the door innards as possible.



Start at the front, put the 2 pins in, start lining up the tabs (stretching ever so slightly is required) and push everything in. Nice and simple.



The door and window glass will now seal effectively!



I took this opportunity to add washers to the bottom 4 screws on the door panel. Some idiot ripped the panel off without removing them and punched giant holes in the panel. As usual...



Door closes nicely, albeit it does need a bit of effort to close fully. New rubber takes time to mold, so I'm not going to worry about it. The window seals great as does the door itself.

Easy job. 45 minutes to do it all. Amusingly I had a guy look at this car and refuse to buy it because the rubber was in bad shape and it "would cost him too much to redo it" which makes me laugh...

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Last updated March 9th, 2015