Dino Saga 051002 Winter is coming, time to replace window lip seals. My homemade ones were coming loose and didnt work too well anyway. Original ones never touched the glass on the outside. That is why the inside of the doors were rusting when I bought the car. Rust drastically slowed but I thought I could do a better job on a second try. Took a trip to my local auto-glass dealer and explained the problem. Gap between chrome door trim and glass ranged from 3/16 at door latch to 3/8 near middle of glass. Needed flexibility. Glass man had a 2 ft diameter loop of rubber trim samples and we started looking for something with a large lip and a very thin steel supported profile. Finally found #7501181 Felt Run. $20 for an 8 ft length. Sold. First picture shows the comparison with what Ferrari used. Looked good and I had enough to experiment. I have taken the door apart many times to work on door latch-lock mechanism and to replace the window U-channels. When changing the channels I loosened the bottom of the front channel support, bent it forward, slid the old channels out and put the new in. Without taking the glass loose! This time I took out lower and upper channel screws and found that I would have to take the wind-wing out to get the window out. I could see 4 little screws holding the old seals on. Could not get to the front three without taking out the window. There had to be a better way. It was interesting to see that nothing had ever lined up according to the plans. Ferrari had bent or beaten things into place and extra access holes had been created when necessary. But the finished product looked great. Except for the window seals that didnt. Ran the window down and took out the rear seal screw. Very short. Pulled on the seal. Very weak and perforated. OK! Took a screwdriver and pried seal until it slipped over screw heads. Screws were then loose and I slowly unscrewed them 90 deg. at a time with a pair of forceps. Home free. Cut a piece of Mat Board 2 wide and length of window. Taped it to window about halfway up and parallel to chrome trim. Lowered window so top of mat was about 1 above trim. Slipped new seal between mat and trim. It was tight near the latch and had up to 1/8 clearance forward. That I could handle with black silicone. The silicone would hold the seal in place just fine. No screws required and I could remove seal with an X-Acto knife if necessary. The mats purpose was to prevent silicone from getting on window and to space the seal 1/16 away from glass so no binding. Cut 3 lengths of 1/16, 3/32 and 1/8 aluminum welding rod to act as spacers between chrome and seal to compress seal and let silicone into the resulting gap. Put silicone on rear 6 of seal and pushed it into place. Added rods periodically to give uniform curve to lip. Squeezed in silicone. Checked depth frequently to make sure it was going deep enough. Cut aluminum rods flush with ridge of trim and pushed them down a little. Wiped excess silicone leaving a little depression and let cure overnight. Next morning I removed mat and things worked beautifully. Cleaned silicone residue, put on a new bead of silicone and tooled it with a finger coated with Dawn detergent. Dawn prevents silicone sticking to finger and does not slow cure. Very little silicone required and it was cured in a couple of hours. Pictures show the progression. I put everything back together and did the other door. Never had to take that door apart! Next time I will notch the seal in about 3 places, for about ½ up from the bottom. This will allow me to curve the felt to exactly match the trim. Center could be 1/8 lower. Ends 1/8 higher. You learn. For now, let the Santa Barbara rains come. 3 days well spent. John Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
