As the title says, I'm trying to determine whether there was a lapse in judgement when designing the vent weathersrip seals back in the 60"s, or if I have an issue myself and theres something I need to do to fix it.

I just reinstalled my vent window and noticed some issues with the weather stripping, and then compared it to the passenger side (which I didnt mess with), and both have identical issues, which makes me question if it's just a bad design issue.

In the top picture, notice how the spot I marked doesnt fully cover the gap between the frame and the door (it's hard to see). This is at the spot of the door frame where the slot increases in width to allow the vent spring etc. to fit in the slot.

2nd issue - in the bottom picture, I marked a gap in the weather strip, between the vent and the vertical window track.

Is there something I need to do to install these "correctly", or is this just a **** poor design prone to water leakage?

 

The seal on my 65 does not have any of the gaps posted in U'r thread. I got the impression the old seal was re-installed; if so, perhaps at some point someone trimmed a bit too much off the old seal or purchased a generic ' one size fits all' brand ? Purchased weatherstrip kit in the past and found it so inferior ended up tossing the kit and although I have issues with DC and their current outsourcing of replacement parts I have found the quality of their gaskets, weatherstrip, and seals very good.

 

I question if it's the manufacturer of the seals that the truck had on it, cause both sides are identical in length, but very could have been the previous owner doing both at the same time and cut to the same length. Maybe I'll look into trying a reputable places seals, hopefully they'll be longer in length cause they're not cheap. Itd be nice if they listed a length in the specs

 

Mearntain - One thing I noticed about your vent seals along that bottom edge is they are not supposed to cover the painted outside surface but should be inside of the window channel area. As the vent window assembly is installed from the inside up into place that seal should go into place and not be touched again. Pulling the rubber to the outside after it is installed isn't the way they originally did it.

They didn't worry much about water getting inside of the door. Even the window sweeps are not water tight so a lot of rain that runs down the outside of the main door windows runs past the whiskers down into the door and out the bottom drain holes. Not quite as sealed up as a modern car where the window sweeps might fit very tight to the glass keeping a larger majority of the water out of the inside of the door.

 

So if understand you correctly, i should take a small screwdriver and press the flap into the slot of the door, around the entire perimeter of the vent?

 

No, not around the entire perimeter, just along that lower edge from the back up toward the pivot point. Here's a picture of an original (which need to be replaced due to the typical heavy cracking).

 

Great info to know since I'm re-doing my door seals soon too. What's used to secure the glass into the vent window frame? Is it just standard weatherstrip glue?

 

That picture couldnt have been a better response. Thanks for the clarification!

 

Chad, I think over time your seals have shrunk a little and slipped inside the lip on the door. The body assembly manual P27 shows the vent window rubber over the top of the door on both sides. Although mine ended up flush on the inside.This is a picture of mine. They along with the anti- rattlers came from Carpenter.

 

I have mine like this as well.

 

I'll buy that. Might still be something slightly amiss since the flap seems to be riding higher near that back edge on the OPs truck, but I agree that flap on a new set of seals does look like it should be on the outside. I tell you all of my stuff here is flat worn out.

 

It's possible Mearntains rubber isnt fully seated into the channel? Also that gap near the back edge/division bar, at least to me, signifies the whole rubber piece needs to be slid down in the channel. Would need to see how it fits at the top. I know when i replaced my rubber I installed and pulled it out of the channel 1-2 times to make sure it was lined up right. It's not the easiest to do.

Mearntain - where did you buy your rubber? My DC rubber fit really well.

 

Maybe I'll go ahead and buy a set from DC and see what happens. These are actually the ones that were on the truck when I bought it, I didnt replace them. I actually did originally order a set, but once I pulled the vent and realized it wasnt dry rotted, I canceled the order and reinstalled with the old seal.

Do you by chance remember if the strip should fit flush on the top side of the frame? I had approx the same overhang of stripping coming out of both sides of the vent channel, I lined up with the hole in the stripping directly above the hole in the frame for the vent pivot. Maybe I should've offset it some since the pivot is slightly angled. It's definitely fully seated as well, I made sure I felt the "click" when the second half of the channel was fully pressed in.

 

Huh both of mine were ROCK hard and i had to chisel them out. Any chance your vent window rubbers are not original? Might be why the don't fit well.

But on mine yes they overlapped the frame a good bit on both ends. I have a stock vent window that I think still has the old rubber in it in the garage. I'll try to snap a pic.

 

Yea, it really surprised me too - they were extremely soft and pliable still. It's been sitting in a garage at the previous owners house, 100% untouched since 96. It's possible he replaced the seals shortly before parking it in the garage, but still surprising how good of shape they were in still. If you had a chance to get a pic sometime, thatd be great. Theres no rush, still need to get tags and all that fun stuff until it hits the road anyway, and its garage kept too so no weather in there to worry about (I hope atleast ha).