Obviously the general fix-o-resto process on my son's Mav is proceeding slower than anticipated. All those who are surprised please signify by uplifted hand. (I see none in the crowd.) Weatherstripping... In addition to being expensive (another post) I am VERY disappointed in the quality and construction - specifically on the roof-rail (upper) door weatherstripping and trunk weather stripping. The original roof rail weatherstripping on our car is getting hard and has molded to the door edge shape, so it isn't sealing very well. The NEW weatherstripping I bought (from eBay yes, but labeled as Daniel Carpenter) appears to be the right length and has the correct windlace to secure it around the door frame, but the gasket material itself is just a hollow, round tube of (IMO) lightweight rubber, almost like a foam rubber. The original is clearly very thick rubber, rubber and appears as if it were quite a bit bigger (rounder, thicker, whatever) than the replacement stuff I have in hand. Will this new stuff work??? Does anyone make a BETTER version of roof rail door weatherstripping? I'm reluctant to go to the trouble of replacing the original with this stuff if it's not even sufficient (big/thick enough) to create a seal around the door top. Next is the trunk weatherstripping. Again, from eBay but labeled as Daniel Carpenter. IMO, this stuff is appears to have the correct cross-section profile, but seems to be about 25% smaller in size/scale than the original gasket I removed. As you can see from the attached photos... Photo 1: the trunk lid LIP is not a uniform size/shape all around the trunk. The lower, rearmost edge, the trunk lip is taller and thicker than the rest of the trunk lip. Photo 2: the gasket, although small fits pretty snugly on most of the trunk Photo 3: The little slot in the gasket that goes over the trunk lid lip is too small for larger section of the trunk lip. Even if I force it on, there is about 1/8" GAP between the lower edge of the gasket and the actual metal surface it's suppose to "sit" on. Am I missing something obvious? Or again, does anyone make a similar gasket profile (extrusion) with a deeper/wider lip? Or has anyone found a more generic weatherstrip extrusion that will work...??? Thanks for your help and a shoulder to cry on... Ps. On a positive note, the lower door weatherstripping I bought seems nearly perfect: size, shape, quality, etc.
I used steel rubber door seals, and they are hollow too and didn't seem to be as big around either.. They worked very well though and seal really well... as for the trunk weather strip it was the same as yours, I glued it on the edge and when It came across by the latch side I just glued it up against the lip.... NO LEAKS....
Only one compamy makes the Maverick stuff...so it will have to do. The one piece you said you have no problems with is the one that everybody complains about. I think you will have NO problems with any of it. On the trunk weatherstrip, it gets glued to the flat part. I have never seen it glued so that it overlaps the metal part. I also reproduced the "holes" in the trunk weatherstrip. This helps it collapse when you shut the trunk. You can see a few of the holes here.
With the "go for it" feedback, I "went for it" and installed the upper and lower door seals and the trunk seal and lived to tell about it. So that means you can do it to! First observation, and it kinda goes without saying, but quality wasn't exactly Job-1 in these years. Misaligned edges, gross overlap, and bent and poking out metal seemed to be the rule of the day. I had my hammer and dolly out for a good 10 minutes smacking down and straitening out the edges as best I could around the lips of the upper door frames and trunk. Second observation, overall the trunk went okay but I didn't catch Craig's point about NOT trying to get the little lip in place. For that reason, I probably didn't get the entire thing fully seated in places. But it looks okay, I guess, hopefully it will work. Once everything seemed good I slammed the trunk shut and left it overnight to setup. Third observation, the doors are pretty hard to close. Not impossible, but you definitely have to put some ooomph into it. I presume this is from the new and very firm lower rubber seals which will hopefully begin to relax over time...??? So did ALL go well? Not exactly. I have one serious issues: The top (window frame) of the driver side door does not "squish" into the roof-rail gasket. The very top edge is barely in contact with the gasket, but the rearmost edge of the window frame is a good 1/8" from even touching the gasket. I can clearly see light between the door and gasket with the door FULLY closed and latched. My first inclination was I hadn't installed the gasket correctly, but I checked everything and there's only one way those things go on. My second thought was that the window frame could be bent - and maybe that is the case. But looking it over very carefully, it's more like the window frame part of the door is offset outward from the body - as if this particular door is "wrong" for this particular body, if that makes any sense. (Could such a thing actually happen? Did they mix-n-match body parts on the assembly like to get better fit-n-finish? If so, could this be a replacement due to an accident or something in the past?) Both driver and passenger side roof-rail gaskets looked identical in size and construction (apart from being mirror images of each other) and the passenger door squishes the roof-rail gasket quite nicely and fairly uniformly around the edge. Now what do I do?!?!? I can't have this big air gap in the door seal !!!
You will find the doors, as well as the trunk lid, hard to shut for quite awhile until the new gaskets get squished a little bit. On the bottom of the door gasket, I would make sure at the front of the door that the gasket can "pivot" and is not glued in place. This allows the gasket to move as the door shuts and provide a tight seal. When these cars rolled down the assembly line, "better fit and finish" was the LAST thing on anybody's mind. The assembly worker was getting paid to assemble cars. They were not paid to care. If one thinks these cars would pass the ball-bearing test (for you youngsters, I believe it was Mercedes-Benz that had an advertising campaign touting the fact that their panel alignment was so good that you could roll a ball-bearing along all the seams of the panels and it would not fall in between the panels)...they will not. The best one can hope for is "pretty darn close". Having said that, I can tell you I switched the passenger door on my orange Grabber due to the probelm you were having. How does the rest of the door line up in relation to the panels next to it? What you may need to do, or have done, is drill out the spot welds at the bottom of the door window frame where it is welded to the door. Then move the window frame "in" at the top and reweld. You will also have to move and adjust the window "slider"/track inside the door at the rear of the door. You may als be able to just use your "muscle" and bend the window frame in a little to get it to fit tighter against the car. I still feel this will require you to adjust the window slider/track inside the door.
If the door has ever been off and someone lifted it by using the window channell/frame, it is probobly bent.
We had to bend my drivers slightly on my car. They arent hard to bend. I had my body man do it since I was chicken. HE did all my panel fitting. Check your fit of the door with the rear quarter body line. You may be able to tip the door in at the top a bit at the hinge adjustments. If its lined up well with the quarter then you may have to move the frame a bit. Body fit on these cars was horrible. Sometimes you have to find a happy median when fitting these econo cars. My doors were very hard to close for at least a year. Especially when cold out. The door rubbers really ticked off myself and my body man. I guess we are used to installing factory dealer parts at work. The AK rubbers fit terrible but we made them work. HAd to take an inch out of each lower and move the body clips in the body upper at the a pillar. Not even close to the factory hole spacing. Make sure you dont glue the ends of the door lower rubber and the upper body opening at the A pillar. They need to pivot and move when they contact each other.
I have also had issues with one of my other Mavericks at the upper window frame. I bent the frame inward and adjusted the lower window run so the window would roll up and down easily. Even laying the door on the ground with the door panel side down will bend that frame outward. Found that out the hard way.
Place your knee against the lower portion of the door and yank on the window frame to adjust it into position. That is how they did it when they were built.
LOL - great ideas team. I think this falls into the category of: if it jams force it...if it breaks it needed replacing anyway! But unfortunately, that wont fix my problem. The door actually lines up pretty well with the body, and the top of the door/window frame is in fact touching the new roof rail gasket. The GAP is at the lowest, rearmost point of the window frame - i.e. nearest the outside door handle. It's as if the door bolt thing (body side) was too far OUT, or the entire latch mechanism (door side) was too far IN, when the car/door was built - and I don't see any way to adjust those items...??? Either way, I spent quite a while looking at everything last night and I'm leaning toward a much simpler solution: What about mirroring the entire roof rail gasket with a generic "tube" gasket on the inner surface of the door/window frame that would (normally) be in contact with the new roof rail gasket? Granted this isn't the "correct" solution, but wouldn't it do the job with minimal expense and effort? The rain channel appears to do most of the heavy lifting for handling water around the window frame. Given the relatively deep recession of the roof rail gasket, doesn't is serve mainly as a wind seal rather than mainly a water seal?
You can adjust the fit of the door, and the door striker. How are your door pins? Quite a few of us have used the same gaskets with no issues, so it has to be something simple, I'd doubt it's the gaskets.
The door seems quite solid overall - pins, striker, etc. As I said, the door skin aligns pretty nearly with the body right now. If I adjust the door inward enough to mash the gasket, I'm thinking it will not sit flush with the rear body panel. But I guess I can try it... Do we have striker adjustment procedures anywhere on the forum?
it might not only be the striker which needs to be adjusted, but also the hinges. they can also move the door inward, you might try to tilt it a little. when using different doors on my car, the frame had to be bent to make it fit, too.
Thanks guys. (I'm still looking for a striker adjustment procedure.) Back to a previous question: What about simply adding a generic foam-tube-weatherstrip gasket to the door frame? I'm absolutely not questioning everyone's advice, I'm just curious if this is a practical alternative.
No way would I ADD more weatherstripping to the car. Sounds like an adjustment issue to me. Try moving the striker bolt "in" on the door jamb. Just loosen the phillips screws and move it "in" just a tiny bit and retighten the screws. The phillips screws take a huge screwdriver. I have a special screwdriver I use just for this purpose.
