Re: Weatherstripping

by cees klumper on Sat Feb 04, 2012 8:40 am

Haha, no, but it did seem like a logical thing to do, especially looking at how the old rubber had been shaped by the glass. I will try some vaseline now, probably will still smoothen things out further.

by Fishgrinder on Mon Feb 06, 2012 2:31 am

As Mcarlo77 said I did run in to a problem with my weatherstrip kit from Metro (Metro Supersoft RKB1900-111). However, that was just a tiny gap at the rear of the door, as you see in the picture. Seems like the seal bends inwards just a tad to early. Otherwise I think the roof rail seal fit very well, and it dropped nicely in to the rail that holds it. Since I had both windows out of the door, I had to do the adjustment process from scratch. I've driven the car in rain and washed it with a high pressure washer, and it is tight. The trunk gasket also fit nicely.

I just have to ask: did you clean out the old gasket remains and glue properly before you started, and is it installed correctly? Strange it sticks out like that on the a-pillar. I also reckon some adjustment will be necessary unless the new gasket is 100% like the original. Seems like the rear of your window should be pushed inwards as you pointed out.

Dont have any pictures of my roof rail seals installed at hand.

by thatfnthing on Mon Feb 06, 2012 9:54 am

MCarlo77 is spot on -- the quality is not uniform, be it Metro, SoffSeal, Steele, whoever. However, I think most of your bad experience was the seller, especially based on your description of how you were treated afterward. I have bought from Metro directly, and had good luck with the trunk and window strips, and mediocre luck with the door strips, which needed some "coaxing" to fit properly on the end caps.

However, I did discover that I had to readjust my glass to get a good fit against the new stuff, which seems to be slightly thicker than the old. I also discovered the new stuff tends to "stick" -- for this I wiped it down with 303 vinyl/convertible top treatment, which makes it very slick. I also found that upgrading to power windows didn't hurt -- the power window motors generate more torque than I could by hand to seal the windows against the weatherstripping.

Mark

by Landonus on Mon Feb 06, 2012 1:20 pm

2fat2fly wrote:
Landonus wrote:Notice the gap at the top because the rubber on the B pillar that meets the door is so thick, also the thickness on the A pillar causing it to flare out. Am i crazy or is this a truly faulty product?

not sure but I think you may need to adjust your glass in the frame, it doesn't appear to fit the framework very well ????????
there are stops inside to adjust the distance the glass travels ( I think )

I forgot to take a picture of the rubber at where the door meets the post. The rubber there along the pillar with the push clips in it was solid and very thick. That is why the glass is so far out. I think it might have messed something up because I had to leave it on there about a week until the new rubber came in the mail because the old was unuseable. But I always shut the door while it was rolled down and rolled it up and got out the passenger side. It was so thick I thought it was going to break it. My window now flops in and out when the door is open or not rolled all the way up and may be why it is not sealing correctly now. Crying or Very sad

by Landonus on Mon Feb 06, 2012 1:24 pm

Fishgrinder wrote:As Mcarlo77 said I did run in to a problem with my weatherstrip kit from Metro (Metro Supersoft RKB1900-111). However, that was just a tiny gap at the rear of the door, as you see in the picture. Seems like the seal bends inwards just a tad to early. Otherwise I think the roof rail seal fit very well, and it dropped nicely in to the rail that holds it. Since I had both windows out of the door, I had to do the adjustment process from scratch. I've driven the car in rain and washed it with a high pressure washer, and it is tight. The trunk gasket also fit nicely.

I just have to ask: did you clean out the old gasket remains and glue properly before you started, and is it installed correctly? Strange it sticks out like that on the a-pillar. I also reckon some adjustment will be necessary unless the new gasket is 100% like the original. Seems like the rear of your window should be pushed inwards as you pointed out.

Dont have any pictures of my roof rail seals installed at hand.

by Landonus on Mon Feb 06, 2012 1:28 pm

Landonus wrote:
Fishgrinder wrote:As Mcarlo77 said I did run in to a problem with my weatherstrip kit from Metro (Metro Supersoft RKB1900-111). However, that was just a tiny gap at the rear of the door, as you see in the picture. Seems like the seal bends inwards just a tad to early. Otherwise I think the roof rail seal fit very well, and it dropped nicely in to the rail that holds it. Since I had both windows out of the door, I had to do the adjustment process from scratch. I've driven the car in rain and washed it with a high pressure washer, and it is tight. The trunk gasket also fit nicely.

I just have to ask: did you clean out the old gasket remains and glue properly before you started, and is it installed correctly? Strange it sticks out like that on the a-pillar. I also reckon some adjustment will be necessary unless the new gasket is 100% like the original. Seems like the rear of your window should be pushed inwards as you pointed out.

Dont have any pictures of my roof rail seals installed at hand.

Yeah. I actually took a drill with a wire wheel and ground all the old gunk out of the rails, then shot the naked metal with some flat black roll bar/chassis paint.

by Landonus on Mon Feb 06, 2012 1:31 pm

How do you go about adjusting the glass?

On another note Ebay refunded my money and the seller is stuck with the negative feedback I left. They also refunded the $11 and change it took to mail the package back. Very Happy

by Fishgrinder on Mon Feb 06, 2012 2:06 pm

Landonus wrote:How do you go about adjusting the glass?

On another note Ebay refunded my money and the seller is stuck with the negative feedback I left. They also refunded the $11 and change it took to mail the package back.

Good to hear you sorted it out.

I found a picture of the roof rail installed:

Forgot to mention that couple of the plastic push pins didn't line up with the holes. There I just put extra glue behind it, and as they are squeezed when the door closes, it sits good. Besides that I didn't get any "excess" material, and the corner lined up perfectly.

Regarding window adjustment I'm probably the wrong guy to ask Laughing

Spent like 1 1/2 hrs fiddling around with adjustments, which there are quite many of. There must be a procedure for how to do this, but I didn't have any.

For a start you of course have to remove the door panel. Then the spots marked in red in the picture will adjust the window motion... in every thinkable and unthinkable direction Wink

I believe that any new gasket will require more force to shut the door until it settles in its grove. Regarding opening and closing the window, mine was still pretty hard to close with the hand crank one month after I had installed the new weatherstrip. So I just opened the door to close it completely. Now the car has been sitting for like 4 months, so I guess it's settled even more. Maybe that vaseline trick helps as well, didn't think of that.

by Mcarlo77 on Mon Feb 06, 2012 3:23 pm

I believe that any new gasket will require more force to shut the door until it settles in its grove. Regarding opening and closing the window, mine was still pretty hard to close with the hand crank one month after I had installed the new weatherstrip. So I just opened the door to close it completely. Now the car has been sitting for like 4 months, so I guess it's settled even more. Maybe that vaseline trick helps as well, didn't think of that.
[/quote]

Again, the fact that new aftermarket weatherstripping needs to be "conditioned" in order for everything to fit is simply a sign of piss poor design/quality IMO. You know the stuff that originally came on our cars didn't have to be "conditioned".

by thatfnthing on Mon Feb 06, 2012 9:09 pm

Fishgrinder wrote:
Landonus wrote:How do you go about adjusting the glass?

Regarding window adjustment I'm probably the wrong guy to ask Spent like 1 1/2 hrs fiddling around with adjustments, which there are quite many of. There must be a procedure for how to do this, but I didn't have any.

For a start you of course have to remove the door panel. Then the spots marked in red in the picture will adjust the window motion... in every thinkable and unthinkable direction

If that isn't enough, there are more adjustments in the middle of the door to adjust the tracks, which can also affect window alignment.

The good news: The alignment procedure is actually detailed in the Fisher Body manual for your year, which are readily available on eBay or from Helm.

The bad news: The procedure involves a fair number of pre-measured, pre-shaped blocks to check fitment at various points. They have GM tool numbers, but I have never seen them in the wild. I suppose you could conceivably recreate them from the pictures...