Replacing rubber seals a pain

[Danglerb]

Took me WAY too long, but I managed to reverse the 30 second job of pulling off my old hatch seal and the driver side window channel.

Window channel, the fuzzy covered rubber the window fits in, was the worst. Something had messed up the window channel in about a six inch section it was pulled out of the trim and squished over, so without a thought I pulled it all the way out of the channel last week, then I looked at the replacement cost. YIPES.

I cleaned the old seal and left it bent so it unsquished as much as possible in the sun for a few days, and today set out to put it back in. I cleaned the seal and the door channel, and sprayed the bead of the seal with silicone lubricant and wiped some around the door channel.

The interior side of the seal requires the door trim to be loose. I left the bottom except for the lock knob intact and bent the trim enough away from the door. I knew the door trim attachments released by pushing down on a tab from the top, so this part went quickly and easily.

The exterior side of the seal has a round bead that has to go into a TINY channel, and this took forever. Only a small fraction of an inch could be forced into the channel at a time, and any awkward movement pulled out several minutes of work. All the time doing this I kept thinking some tool that makes it easy must exist, like a screen door roller or something. What finally worked, but very slowly, for me was a thin steel bar to hold open the space the window glass goes in, and a blunt blade screwdriver. The bead absolutely can't be forced into the channel, it must be compressed and rolled in.

I started from the lock knob and worked forward, which may have been a mistake as the last three inches where the corner trim piece is located I had ZERO luck with. Maybe Monday with rest and fresh eyes I will try some more, but it doesn't immediately appear to be a problem.

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I had the rear hatch seal I pulled off my 84 parts car, and since it was in much better shape than the seal on my 85, I pulled it off. Cleaning some kind of white caulking the PO used took some time, but the hard part was the top of the seal thats hidden under the hatch/hinge area. The panel over the sun roof motor, some of the headliner, and the passenger side ribbon of cables to the hatch all needed to be loosened or removed.

Generally the seal went on quickly once the items were removed to expedite access, except for the top, which was both blind and VERY difficult to work fingers into. What finally worked for me was to VERY carefully get the length correct, then I used a wide tool shaped like a J to reach into the hinge area and pull the seal down tight against the metal seam where it belonged.

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Whole lot of positions that wore out this old man fast.

[Cheaptools]

Dude. I can't believe you did it without taking the window out. Your my hero.