The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Doors installing door parts

I have new skins installed on my doors, and they're painted. I have all new rubber and window track parts coming from Steele Rubber. I'm thinking that it would be easier to install all of these parts and pieces with the doors installed on the truck, because they will be a little more rigid when bolted in place. Am I thinking right? Are there any pieces that need to be installed on the doors with them off of the truck? I'm surprised that the rubber that installs on the outside lip of the door is now self adhesive. I'm usually leary about self explanatory stuff, but since Steele is selling it, I assume that it's OK. Have any of you used that?

Watching this as I will eventually have the same question.

Mike, I installed everything in my doors on the bench with them laying outside down. Appropriate padding to protect the paint of course. It made it easier to get to than I think it would have with the doors mounted on the truck. If your doors are not rigid unless on the truck, then something isn't right.
Self adhesive weatherstrip sure would have been easier to deal with than using weatherstrip adhesive, but I managed to get that done (also with the door laying on the bench)

Thanks, it does seem like the rubber that glues to the perimeter of the door, (or self adhesive) would be easier to do with the door laying flat, so I guess I'll wait until the pieces arrive and then do at least that part with the doors on the bench. In my original post, I used a poor choice of words when I said that the doors would be more rigid mounted on the truck. Obviously they would not become more rigid. What I meant was that they just wouldn't be sliding around easily.

Definitely do the weatherstrip on the bench. I'd hate to do that with the door mounted on the truck. I just did my passenger door weatherstrip this morning. I do need to trim a section of it a bit where I needed to cut back the edge of the door to fit the opening. But that's on the lower rear section of the door, so should be easy to do sitting on the running board.

I go out early before it gets hot and lay a blanket in the grass and then lay the door on top of that. Everything is easier that way. I am not a fan of self-adhesive weatherstrip. It gets much too hot here and I haven't seen any that can stay put for long. Good luck!

I'm right there with Kevin and Jon on doing the weatherstrip work "off truck". Whether you use the weatherstrip adhesive and standard weatherstripping or the adhesive backed you will need to "bunch" the weatherstrip when rounding the corners and I cannot imagine how difficult that would be with the doors mounted. Now for the window tracks , I installed those after mounting the doors.

For the door weather stripping, I laid my doors down on a automotive portable work stand with foam padding. Very simple and much easier than doing it with the doors attached to the truck.