The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Melted Rubber

A lot of the rubber seals and weather stripping around the doors and cab on my ’41 look as if they are melted and stuck to the metal. Now, I believe the truck was used as a fire truck at some time in it’s sorted past but I can’t believe it got hot enough to melt the rubber without damage being visible on the old red paint. Anyone ever seen this stuff that looks like melted rubber??

If your refering to the rubber as being soft and gooey on the edges it may have been treated with newer interior treatment spray, something like armourall but stronger. The seals could not have been effected by the heat of a fire without the paint being done in. I tried to no avail to restore a set of windshield rubbers on my old ladder truck with silicone and ended up with a mess. scrap off the old and install new ones. Tight lines as we say in the north west

Nope this stuff can't be from anything like armourall (unless it was almost pure acid) . It is completely lost any sign of its original shape and in some cases started to run down the edges of the doors. I just wonder if the inside of the cab could have been that hot from sitting in the sun for a couple of years. This may have been more plausible had the truck not have come from northern Minnesota.

Wow sounds like a handfull. If it had gotten that hot I'm sure there would be other signs of the heat such as deformation on parts in the cab. Regardless still sounds like you will have one heck of a mess to clean-up and still need the seals. For the clean-up try a wax and grease remover. It's available from your local auto paint supplier pe-Kleano is a brand that comes to mind. Don't know what you have there in Michigan but maybe a NAPA will have it. Buy it in gallons or quarts if possible. The small pint and half pint cans will cost a bundle. Wear gloves and do it outside or in a ventilated area, a vapor respirator would be a good idea to. Have plenty of old rags around. Good luck and good fishin

Hi Allan: Welcome to “Stovebolt” …..pe-Kleano…I know I have heard that name before.

The fact is that the rubber seals that look to be melted come off rather easily as they, or what’s left of them, are fairly crisp and chip away rather easily with a putty knife. It’s just such a strange thing to see I still can not figure how it happened

This is a common problem with old rubber bands. Poorly vulcanized rubber does this after a while.

Sorry, type-o, fat fingers. It's Pre-Kleano. I believe it is an Inmont product. You do have a mystery there. Haven't had that one but at least it comes off easy.

Trojan makes some good rubber products that are very friction resistant and I have never heard of any melting with normal use. :rolleyes:

Up date on the "Melted Rubber" Once I started taking things apart I quickly realized that the stuff that was, or looked to be, "melted" was NOT the origional weather stripping. The origional weather stripping was all broken off and just the part that was clamped (hidden) under the various moldings remained. The stiff that appeared to be melted was some kind of stick on material like the weather stripping sold for household storm windows.

Cujo I got that but you only gave KIP a subliminal [ spelling] :rolleyes:

Kip - You are right. If you had any kind of rubber weather striping around your doors, it was not original. The 41-46 trucks have a windlace around the doors which is held in place with the trim molding that's around the doors.

Any of the vendors will have replacement windlace for your doors. You can get either rubber or a vinal wrapped version. Check out their catalogs, some of them have some pretty good pictures of where it goes.

As for other rubber parts, ie front and rear window gaskets, I would recomend Steel Rubber. They are not the cheapest but they have the best products that arn't going to turn to dust in 2 years.

Good Luck
George