77orange

Need new top seals for the 1977. Door sicker says mfg date is early (10/1976) and the VIN numbers at the end are 406578, making it the 6,578 unit to roll off the line, also way early. Alarm is on the fender but I do sport a blue motor

I am hoping someone can identify the seal itself by the following pics. I am assuming it is the early design... Any help? Thanks, Jim

'75

The later one has a metal strip over the door window. The best way is to count the plastic push in retainer holes in the top after the old strip is removed.

77orange

Is it possible to count the pins (19 early, 18 later) without removing the current seal?

As for the metal strip, that's where my confusion is. There is a piece of metal that looks to be behind the rubber in the seal (see pictures 1 and 2) and there also appears to be a zig zag piece of thin metal in there as well ( the rubber I assume was torn off).

Thanks Jim

And Merry Christmas to all. Hoping you reflect on the gift of Christ tomorrow.

77orange

So in my case the seal was an early one. An interesting observation was that my original seal I removed had a very thin piece of zig zag shaped steel in it (it was exposed because of the poor condition of the seal). The replacement did not. Also, the biggest difference between an early and late is that the early design rubber seal slides or snaps into a metal channel that is screwed to the top. I think the late seals this metal made in the rubber and the seal itself (with metal inside) screws to the top as a unit. This can be observed without removing anything - unlike counting the 18 vs 19 holes.

I used the 3m black weather strip adhesive with good luck.

That's it - just closing this thread. Jim