Well we have talked a bout door seals many times before but I don’t recall seeing anything about the problem I’m having. We are addressing a 1950, 3604 that was 95% original here.
I got my new door rubber from Chevy Duty and the cross section is almost a perfect match to the original weather strip. They were a very tiny bit larger but I expected that due to the age of the original ones being 57 years and figured they have shrunk up a bit in that time. After a good clean up with the 3m adhesive solvent, I glued up both legs of the corner that they fit into and the rubber itself and stuck ‘em in place. The 3m contact cement grabs really tight so ya only get one shot at it and ya better have them in the right position on the first try or you can forget it. I did have the doors off and laying on horses so it was an easy task, don’t see how you could do it with the doors mounted up. After I got the doors re-installed, averaged out the gap and adjusted everything so it was flush I felt quite lucky that it went so well. After all I’ve been hearing all the horror stories from other people when it came to re-mounting their doors with the new seals. The door closes nice, just a little tension from the new weather strip and they fit flush with the rest of the cab, and the belt is lined up nice and even, sounds perfect doesn’t it!
I’ve been showing off how nice the doors close to all interested parties for the past week, opening and closing again and again. Last night I was showing a nephew, who is a body man by the way, how nice and even the gap is and I noticed that the rubber was sticking out through the front of the door and the cab. Upon closer inspection I noticed that when you open the door the gap closes up in the middle because of the curvature of the body at this point. This causes the seal to drag and is beginning to pull it away from the door at this point. Because of the physics of the opening, that is the curvature, I don’t see any way around this. If I move the door back to open up the gap at the front its to much and it closes up the gap at the back to much.
The original molding was completely pulled away in the front on both doors when I picked up the truck so this area appears to have been a problem for many years.
Has any one else encountered this on their trucks??
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL
