The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Doors Looking for the Goldilocks Door Seal!

Weeks of agony have led me to post this. I searched everywhere, watched every video, read the factory manual, read the FAM, and read every thread I could about door seals before I began the process of re-assembling my painted doors and getting them back onto the truck᠁

After painting the doors, I installed them without weatherstrip for a test fit, and the doors adjusted out nicely and were flush- like a modern car!

I ordered and installed the standard door weatherstrip, with the taller “nose” of the strip on the outboard side of the door facing towards the cab, per many of the instructional videos online. Not only would the doors not close and latch, they were bowing out in places, weirdly and nothing looked right. Forcing them closed and keeping them that way for a year wasn’t going to,solve the problem, either.

I tore out the fresh weatherstripping and re-adjusted the door- it looked and operated perfectly.

So, I ordered the “Thin” door weatherstrip from The Filling Station, and installed it correctly with the tall “nose” of the strip on the outboard side of the door, facing towards the cab. The door closed better this time, but still could not even be forced into position after numerous adjustments with the hinges. I even began tearring up the hinge plates,with a Dremel to allow the hinges to go further outboard. That was unnecessary and a mistake᠁

I tore that weatherstripping off the door, and took the other new “thin” weatherstrip and installed it backwards on the door, with the taller “nose” of the strip against the inboard side of the door this time. Huge difference. Door now closes and latches correctly and is proud of the cab by 1/8”᠁. Which is still ridiculous.

What’s even worse is watching videos where they install the seal, install the door, and then slam it shut and it fits perfectly,᠁and I have read the same accounts by people in this forum who have little trouble with the standard replacement seals᠁.if has baffled me for weeks!




The problem? The weatherstripping that is being sold does not fit all of our trucks,,,apparently, some trucks have larger clearances between the door and the cab than other trucks do. My doors fit very closely.

None of the door weatherstrip sold looks anything like the original weatherstrip that I removed from my doors. It has been on there since 1950. Look at the pics below:

These are all side views. #1 and #4 are the same- the standard weatherstrip sold by most venders.

#2 is the original weatherstrip removed from my truck.

#3 is the “thin” version for our doors that is also available᠁.

Trouble with the “thin” version is that it is too wide, and extends beyond the edge of the door when it is installed. A big problem, if you have nice, minimum gaps at the front and rear because the taller nose of the strip will hit the edge of the cab and fold back, looking like crap and making the door difficult to close again᠁

The solution? We need a better door weatherstrip that more closely matches the factory specs᠁at least for trucks with doors that fit like mine.

[img]https://photos.app.goo.gl/ipB7GsjXwkyHkRrq8[/img]

When I find the Goldilocks door seal, I’ll post it here..

Such an issue with aftermarket door seals. I am baffled by the ease of new cars closing with new weatherstrip and yet the aftermarket seals are often hard and do not work. Huge issue I have with many restorations. Right now struggling with my 1969 VW Bus. Same scenario, doors close and sit real nice with no weatherstrip. Install the seal and you cannot close without slamming and it sits out too far. Ugh!

Browse Steele Rubber Products website for cutaway profiles of their 1000s of weatherstrip offerings. Find what matches what was on your truck originally and then call customer service with the part number. Expensive but if it works correctly it’s worth it.

There is some comfort in knowing that I am not alone᠁ I’ll check out Steele Rubber Products. Thank you

Amen. All points valid ...and some may sit n a hot warehouse and get hard.
....

Ditto on Steele Rubber Products

I fought the seal related door adjustment fight for a long time. My Steele gaskets eventually aged into an acceptable shape with a few summers of Arkansas heat.

Now with the above said, I do recall someone searching for and finding a generic soft seal that was very similar to the factory seal look. According to the poster, it was the Goldilock seal.

Good Luck,

RonR

NorCal Dave,

Here’s the link to Olezippi’s post on D shaped door seals.

I have them on my 51, 3100 and they work great. They’re easy to install and reasonably priced.

The only wind noise I have is from the passenger vent window, which is a separate issue.

I have to crack a window to allow the doors to shut easily. The doors need to be shut firmly but not slammed. I have Altman door latches installed.

Best of all, no leaks when I wash the truck.

I’ve only had them on the truck since last fall so I can’t say how they will hold up with time.


https://www.stovebolt.com/ubbthread...re-door-seals-installed.html#Post1359500

Dan, did you remove the door to change the gaskets?

RonR

Installing the gaskets with the door off and sitting with the inside facing up is much easier and gives you a better chance of getting them installed correctly.

Here’s a trick. Once the door is adjusted properly (with no gasket installed), drill thru your hinges with a bit that fits the shank of a #1 Phillips screwdriver to use as a locater to get the doors back into the adjusted position quickly.

I don't think the problem is with the aftermarket door seals. I think the root of the problem is that these trucks were slapped together at the factory with little or no care for fit and finish.

About the only vehicles I've ever seen from this era with perfect body lines are Cadillacs. Everything else left the factory as "close enough". Trucks are even worse. After all, they were used on farms and construction sites and got the crap beat out of them. Buyers weren't going to complain to the dealer if the right door had a 1/4" gap and the left door had a 1/8" gap or sat an 1/8" proud of the body.

When we restore these trucks we put them together with closer tolerances than they ever saw when new and demand perfection that the truck never exhibited and probably can't achieve.

Some trucks came off the line with everything fitting perfectly and some came off the line so/so.

Thanks guys᠁ the weatherstrip adhesive around the doors has become a mess with me installing and removing the rubber so many times. The 3M adhesive cleaner at $36 a can + shipping works, I am sure, but has anyone tried another product that doesn’t remove the paint as well?

Those “D” seals in the linked thread might be a good solution for me, but I’m going to have to get my adhesive off first.

Thanks for all the replies and input!

Moparguy,

My doors were on when I installed the seals. The truck just came out of the body shop after painting, so the surface was uniform and clean. I started at the bottom, in the center of the door and worked my way all the way around.

One tip I got from Olezippi was to not stretch it, especially around the corners. It sticks pretty darn good.

First of all, about The Filling Station and Steele Rubber, a couple of years ago I worked with Steve at the Filling Station who was doing his part negotiating with Steele to come up with a weatherstrip that came closer to the 1/2 inch gap that should have been the AD truck standard. Originally what Steele had made for the Filling Station was represented to The Filling Station as 1/2 inch, but truthfully it was only 3/8 inch and it just wouldn't work. We got Steele to run it in 7/16" thick and that's as close as they would go...using an extrusion die left from other work they had done in the past. Profit is very important for these folks, it seems. 7/16" being the lip measurement and not the valley measurement. The rounded lip should face outward on the door as that is the sealing part. The GM manual for the truck says anything from flush to 1/16" out (sticking out away from the cab is what they meant to say) is within factory standards. They didn't just throw these trucks together with no concern about fit and finish...but they did have tolerances and for the doors there were certain important design issues---more on that in a moment. So, we (Steve and I) figured 7/16" was as good as we were going to get out of Steele and we left it at that. The original Chevy weatherstrip (I used to purchase it from GM until the mid 80s when they finally stopped having it made for them) was shaped similar to the generic product being sold by all the usual suspect sellers out there, but it was 1/2" tall at the outer lip edge...the outer edge being the part that actually was the weather seal. The valley section was 11/32" and there was a heavy string set in the bottom to keep it from changing dimension when installed. What is being sold today by everyone but the Filling Station is 11/16" thick and it absolutely will not work. Please see the images attached below. And even using a CNC laser cutter, you can't reduce the height of that 11/16" rubber to the correct measurement unless you build a special jig and take a LOT of time. You'll need to run at least 4 passes per piece and you can only cut about 13 inches per pass in length at a speed of 50mm per minute (limiting movement to the X axis only so the table is stationary). So this as I said will be a genuine investment in time and it smells to high heaven. And cutting it with a razor is pure futility. The self-stick "D" shaped hollow rubber would theoretically work ok, but there are a couple of fundamental design points I believe need to be made...one: on the AD trucks, the "weatherstrip" also acts as anti-rattle and that is very important. That's to say it must in a perfect world keep the door held tight in the jamb. Two: the AD door lock (latch if that word is more familiar to you) works best when this pressure is present...and that's why about 2 inches below the central latching point there's a rubber bumper in the jamb. So, if we use a modern type door seal (a soft hollow type seal that presses nicely against both door and jamb but takes no real pressure to close) it won't work as the original weatherstrip was designed. Again the lock isn't the same design as today's mechanisms. Today's locks work differently and equally important is the understanding "unibody" construction brought interesting changes as far as doors, hinges and locks were concerned. Now if you adapted your door to use modern locks (and by this I mean anything used from around 1964 forward---when door hinge, latch and weatherstrip design began changing), you could use the pillow-soft hollow foam and it would seal just fine. That isn't to say modern foam isn't also an anti-rattle component. It is, however not nearly as much as it was in the early days. Try this and see if you don't believe me...rebuild your hinges until they're like new. Then rebuild your lock and striker plates until they're like new. Or buy new ones. Adjust your doors so that they "latch" correctly and then drive around town without any weatherstripping in place. Even with the little hard rubber pads in place, your door will be moving and shaking pretty much all the time. If you have somebody else drive and put your finger at the lock side gap of your door and cab, you'll see just how much flex there is even in a more/less perfect world. Now roll down the window in a newer vehicle and put your fingertip out on that gap and see how much less movement you feel. It may be so slight you don't notice it at all. My whole point is I've tried to find the Goldilocks door seal also...for decades. I've decided the best solution is to understand your door at a point of even to 1/16" out and a weatherstrip like The Filling Station sells may be as good as it gets. But I don't like rattles...especially at the lock/striker. Those can be really disturbing because in these trucks, you're talking metal banging on metal and amplified by both the door shell and the cab...there's no nylon coated metal latch being cushioned by a spring-loaded nylon wedge. So any kind of rattling and banging is harsh and distracting. Good luck.

Thanks for turning this into a very interesting thread᠁I certainly did not mean to sound like I was making disparaging remarks about The Filling Station- on the contrary, as you have mentioned, they presently offer the best fitting seal I have tried thus far, and I enjoy doing business with them. Great pics you guys. I need to learn how to insert pics rather than links to pics. Still learning.



Jon, unrelated, but how do you like your truck with 3.07 rear end and the T5? I have a 3.73: rear with a T5 and first is a tad bit low for me.

Dave, the 3.07 has worked very well. In a perfect world a 3.24 would be a bit better as far as fifth gear, however only a tiny bit as you'll see in a moment. If I went to 3.42, I'd have more first gear than needed. How? Well, the T5 I got had first at 4.03, 2nd at 2.37, 3rd at 1.49, 4th at 1.00 and 5th at .86. So, first is 4.03 x 3.07 or an overall at 12.37 (the OEM AD 1st gear ratio was 12.08). With 3.42, my overall ratio in 1st gear would be around 14 and that's not good for driving in a metro area as you barely get across the intersection before you have to shift to 2nd...unless you're using notably larger diameter tires. As for a 3.73 rear end, there was a T5 with a 3.50 first gear but those aren't too easy to find...they were used in early 80s minivans. 3.50 first with 3.73 rear end ratio would be 13 which is workable. But in my case, second and third gears follow very closely the OEM AD overall gear ratios, so driving feels exactly like it did with the original 3 speed and the best part is I'm still able to haul up to 1000 pounds of "stuff" around if necessary. Then when I get to 4th, engine rpms drop by 25% (basically the difference between 3.07 and 4.11) and in 5th, another 14% drop happens. On flat to gently hilly roads, all is well. In more serious hills, I drop down to 4th and then in steep mountains I can still use 3rd just as I would have with the original OEM gear ratios. I should mention the 235 made from 1959 forward used a camshaft which produced more torque at a lower rpm, so it is happier running at 2000 rpm than say the 1956 235 which didn't produce maximum torque until 2400 rpm and will lug more noticeably at 2000 rpm. By 1959 people were becoming more concerned with air pollution (smog, basically) and the 235 was a nice target as the thing was never designed to be a high rpm engine in the first place. The new cam simply increased efficiency (it was in ways a return to the early Corvette cam) and let GM say they were taking steps toward a reduction of fuel during a wide band of use...which is true. If you look at the torque line for the 1959 235 it is interesting. Here: https://www.gmheritagecenter.com/do...hevrolet-Trucks/1959-Chevrolet-Truck.pdf and go down to page 59. You'll see from just before 1600 rpm to around 2500 it is basically a long and lazy flat line. Lots of nice power for you. Then after 2400 it begins to more sincerely decline and by the time you hit 2700 it is dropping notably. Key point is in fifth gear you get a very long rpm range to enjoy. If you compare it to the torque line for the 1959 283 it is different...the 283 runs up to the high point around 2200 and then starts declining, so there isn't that long flat line of power...more of a short sweet spot you need to hit.

One more thought on door gap...if you want to determine the gap between your door and your cab, go to any store selling toys and buy some Silly Putty. Take it out of the little plastic egg and make a cylinder as you see I've done in image one below. Then wrap a piece of plastic around it...anything like a plastic bag or whatever. You're only isolating it and keeping it from sticking to anything. Then hold it in the proper place and close your door (no weatherstrip in there but adjusted as you want that door to fit). Now you'll see you have made an accurate measure of the distance between the cab and door as in image 2 below. And using any sort of caliper or measuring tool see what that gap is by measuring the squashed Silly Putty. In mine it is 1/2 inch (as you see). Now, I'll promise all points of your door won't be the same. If your hinge/door/body were all exact, they would be, but in almost 60 years of fiddling with these I've not seen that happen even once. So take the highest measurement and go with it. Time, sunshine, use will cause the sponge rubber used in these to settle down (as I think Ron correctly said above). And from this, you can appreciate that any weatherstrip measuring 11/16" isn't going to work.

Jon, the silly putty is an excellent idea. Sounds like you have put more thought and effort into this than anyone else I know.. you are positively right about the 11/16” weatherstrip- it is impossibly thick and useless. I wonder if there is any point in trying to heat the seal with a low setting on A heat gun and then closing the door? I did start thinking about building a jig to pull the seal through that had a razor to trim it, but after your post I’m not even going to try᠁

Regarding the T5, I may have to go with taller tires. My restoration isn’t finished- it hasn’t been anywhere but around my neighborhood a few times, so I haven’t driven it on the highway yet. I have a 261 with the Langdon Bulldog cam (Delta Cams), and milled 848 head (milled before I bought it- wish it wasn’t milled).

[Edit] a dual pattern 254/264 that idles well, has plenty of vacuum and pulls well enough from idle (not like a Blue Flame cam, I believe). So far, I am loving this cam, although it’s torque peak is around 3500᠁ thanks for posting about the torque curves- Interesting info about the torque curves and how it dictates drivability with different gearing selections- I’ll have to go back to my notes to see what my first gear ratio is.

[Edit] my 1st gear is 3.68. (12.7 ratio with my rear) OD is 0.72. Tire height is 27.7” and a 3.73 rear

But all this is best left to another thread, I guess..

Dan, I can’t see how you can install the door seal while the doors are on- was your seal a peel-and-stick? Nice paint work on your truck!

It's not the easiest or most thorough, but I've done it before.

Norcal Dave,

Yes, peel and stick.

I started in the middle of the door at the bottom and worked my way around to butt up against where I started.

Thanks for the compliment on the paint, I’ll pass it on to my painter.

Hi Everyone
I know some of these posts are from a few years ago but I am as well having issues with door closing with new door seals. The doors closed great with no seals and line up flush to cab body. Now with the door seals in they do not latch to the lock position and door sticks out almost 1/2 inch. I have reads the posts with the various supliers and size of door seal rubber
Just wondering if anyone out there can tell me what door seals work for them and if they have a supplier and part#'s that are available still today

Thanks for the help this site is great

I experienced the same situation᠁.looking into “D” seal now