Please don't use Vaseline on rubber, neoprene or similar products. Vaseline will ruin these products and it will begin almost immediately. The original seal was a molded rubber labyrinth design and was very creatively made so it drained (to prevent the vent from sitting in water and rusting. If you have a simple stamped cut foam seal, it will lack any possible draining scheme and you'll get rust around the perimeter of your vent. If you don't have the rather firm labyrinth design, please keep looking. You do know you have to adjust the cowl vent after you remove it, yes? Also the molded labyrinth type has an upper side and a lower side. The one I recently replaced came from The Filling Station and fit perfectly.
Thanks Jon; no I won't be using Vaseline just a passing thought.
This one is a firm (hard) neoprene seal that is identical from side to side (so flip it over, it doesn't matter). Flat as a board as well. I've adjusted the cowl vent, the seal itself simply has a wider footprint than the cowl vent itself. I'm going to try chamfering the edges so that the vent itself can "grab" the seal and slide over it. Otherwise, there's no physical way this seal will work. Like I say, it's so firm that the vertical adjustment is forced out when I try and compress the seal by closing the vent. Which is obviously wrong.
