The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Interiors Door weatherstripping?

I’m working on a ‘53 3800 and putting on new door weather stripping. I got the kit from Steele rubber. They show one piece going all the way around the door, with a joint at the bottom. Is this correct? And then the metal strip at the bottom of the door helps to hold the weatherstripping on along the bottom of the door? It’s been years since I disassembled these doors for painting and I just don’t remember what I took off. For some reason I thought the bottom piece was separate but I can’t remember.

Yes, the joint should be at the bottom. It will allow water to drain out of the sill if any gets behind the rubber.

Mine's also at the bottom, in the center.

Is there a thread or any pics of the proper attachment of the seal? Seems I've seen a post where someone had installed theirs backwards (wrong). Would rather sound dumb but only do it once!

Gents - Here's a snapshot of the Steele Rubber AD door weather strip instruction sheet with a great diagram to help you out. The diagram can be found at this link if you want to download and print it out.

Thanks again Dan. I had already asked this of S.M. and got a good reply. I'm a visual kind of person and this is going to happen tomorrow, I think. I was going to edit out this question as I just found a You Tube video which had the info needed. Happy turkey day!

Thanks for the instruction sheet, this is on my winter to-do list and the sheet will be a great help.

Here’s a couple pics I took way back when……

Can anyone out there confirm that the Steele door seal is the correct thickness and the proper amount of sponginess?

There's a thread somewhere on here that I think JonG shows a comparison of the available weather strips. Steele is the closest to the original but it's not exact. Nobody makes the exact weather strip that the original trucks came with.

JonG wrote a Tech Tip titled “Weatherstripping Demistification” located here and definitely worth reading.

Jon G indicated that the Steele weather strip is 11/16". That is on the too thick end of the spectrum.
He indicated that The Truck Shop sells the 7/16" weather strip.

The 7/16" weatherstrip Steele makes and sells is very good if you have doors, hinges, locks in good shape and that fit well. As has been pointed out, nobody makes the product following the original GM profile. They haven't for a long time and based on what I've been told nobody is willing to without a pretty large outlay of $. More on that idea in a moment.

When the weatherstrip project began, a man at The Filling Station and I worked with Steele. At first they sent a product that was 11/16" in size. I tried it but it was way too thick. In fact what I learned is if you only had about 1 or 2 feet of this to install, your door might close. Past that point it becomes exponentially harder to close and if you install it all the way around your door, you won't be able to close it. I still have the product they sent (not free, mind you...we learned nothing at Steele is free).

Then after many discussions we were sent some weatherstrip in 3/8" size. That was close but not quite right. Another $$$ ching-ching and I do still have that product here. A very nice product, but I need to figure out how to make it useable. The profile matches the 7/16 product Steele has, by the way.

Then finally for the cost of a bit over $200 we received a product that was 7/16" and it is very nice. Steele made it using an old die. I purchased all of the various types and as I said I still have them here. I haven't found a use for the 11/16" product yet but I probably will sometime. Maybe a seal for a door in the tool shed? Don't know.

The fellow at The Filling Station and I agreed in a perfect world we would have a soft-rubber hollow channel weatherstrip that mimicked the AD shape but getting somebody to make it is the catch. There are hollow weatherstrip products out there that will match the height but not really the width and with the AD truck you need a raised lip shape. Also most of the aftermarket hollow core products are self-adhesive and we've already had people here that over the years have tried those without success. You must have a near perfectly clean and painted door (or jamb...but the product works best on the AD door) to have any hope of it staying put. And even then on a hot summer day it might be hanging out the bottom of your door. I've contacted folks in China to have this made and another fellow who was around here for a while contacted a company in the USA. The cost of the die is prohibitive, however. Some have estimated it will cost over $5,000 and I don't have that kind of money to spend on a project like this. But that would make the AD doors (as they were designed and built) close with very little effort and seal very well. If you look at weatherstrip used by Honda, Toyota, GM, etc you'll see it is very soft stuff and usually the engineers will have utilized an outer band and an inner band to eliminate water & air leaks. We can only use one band, though. You can see below what the 7/16" product looks like installed.