The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Doors Door Seals Not Allowing Doors to Close Help!

Hi Everyone
I know some posts are from a few years ago discussed the issue with door side seals on 47-52 Chevy truck door and aftermarket seals not all being the same 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 new door seals are in and they do not latch to the lock position and door sticks out almost 1/2 inch. The body shop even tried turning them around as suggested in other threads on stovebolt forums but no luck.
I have reads the posts with the various supliers and size of door seal rubber being different. I have the 11/16 tall door seals I see there are 1/2 thick door seals but want to get the best possible ones
Just wondering if anyone out there can tell me what door seals work for them and if they have a supplier name and part#'s that are available still today.

Thanks for the help this site is great

Steele Rubber Products, expensive but fit. There has been some discussion about their product being the wrong thickness but that may have been corrected.

This is a very hot subject but I'll take a leap of faith and tell you that I used Classic Parts 03-011 on my 1954 3604 . The doors did not shut really well at first. My solution was to use 1/4-20 hooks screwed into the inside of each door ( holes for the optional arm rests ) two pieces of chain and an adjustable rod to tension the chain pulling the doors "in" . I let the truck sit for several days as I gradually tightened the tension. Doors shut fine now. Here's a couple of pics....note that the seal height of Classics 03-011 is 5/8" .

Steele Rubber's recommended for 1954 shows their seal as being a part number 70-145-73 which has a height of 11/16 and I think that would cause a problem. Steeles part number 50-0085-73 is 5/8 height and I think that's what I'd go with if you didn't want to go with Classic Parts. Note - if I had it all to do over again, I would have taken some modelers clay and somehow stuck pieces of it in several locations around the door (before I installed the seals) and knew what the gap was and that would have helped me understand what gap I had to work with.

Contact Steve at The Filling Station. A few years ago he and I worked with Steele to fix a problem they had with their door seals. Well, they sort of fixed the problem. The original seal GM used was 1/2 inch thick. Until the late 1980s they (GM) were still carrying it. It does not exist anymore. If you use more than 1/2 inch, your door will become exponentially harder to close the larger you get. 5/8" is going to be tight but it might settle down over time. You don't want the rubber too thick and there is definitely a "happy spot" where all works best. In an ideal world, we would have this run like auto makers make it today...open in the center so that it seals easily. 11/16" is just wrong and during our work I learned this thickness was used because it was assumed it would work for many styles and types of doors. It sure won't work for the AD trucks. Steel used a 3/8" die for rubber made for The Filling Station and it was too thin. I have some of that weatherstrip here. When Steele learned of the problem, they ended up using an old die for 7/16", ran the strip again and this generally works fine. During this study I used some Silly Putty between the doors and cab of my 1952 (never wrecked and with proper hinges) and the gap was 7/16" or just a hair below that, so 7/16" works okay. Note: in many of the AD trucks, the upper door clearance will be 3/8" or so...some have told me GM made this change after the first year of the AD trucks. From what I recall the doors on the first year didn't have a smaller clearance along the top and leaked water in blowing rains around the top of the window. Good luck.

Really good information Jon, thanks for sharing your experience. Yep, Steele 70-0331-73 is 7/16, their peel -n-stick 70-0331-WT is also 7/16. If I had it to do over, knowing this, I would have use the 7/16.

Thanks Justhorsenround I will check out Steele Products

Thanks Dusty 53 I will look at both the classic parts rubber and Steele products but I like your idea of pulling the door in and letting it sit to set the rubber . Very ingenious there are a lot of craetive guys on here
Ill let you know how it ebd sup and post photos when its done

Hi Jon thanks for your reply and if I had to bet on the gaps i would bet the gaps are not even all around so this I am sure poses a problem as well, becasue whatever size you go with you either have tight spots or loose spots. Not sure but has anyone ever used different sizes of rubber in areas?