I have a 99 Corvette which I bought for a really good price about a year ago. This past year I have become addicted to restoring things to a point where my wife is pulling her hair out. As most of you can attest, I try to do as much as I can myself since we all know how vastly expensive the stealership can be.

Anyways, I decided to replace my external door seals this weekend since they were very weathered and rough. I already bought both seals on gmpartsdirect and they were about 1/2 the price of GM.

Stupid me, I didn't first check to see if anybody else had done this. From looking at the seal, it has about 6 small pieces of plastic that appear to pop into a hole. Sound easy, right?....wrong.

I ended up taking the door panel off to get better access to the old seal. I was ready to begin. The first thing I noticed was there was no screw at the front of the door to hold it in place. I proceeded to "pull" on the seal throughout the length of it. To my surprise, I started hearing cracking from inside the door. I was able to finally get the seal off with a little force. As I looked back at the door I noticed small tracks that the seal fits into and then it appears you are "supposed" to slide the seal 1 inch back to lock it in place.

The result: I splintered 2 of the fiberglass guides and broke 2 others.

I am totally depressed now because what seemed like a semi easy project is now going to cost me who knows how muich to fix my f up.

I was so upset I took the car up to the GM stealership to have them take a quick look at it (with the door panel off). Two techs told me the best case scenario is to get a body shop to try and fix the fiberglass guides. The other guy told me I may have to replace the whole door.

There is no "part" that you can replace inside the door per GM parts dept.

I have now learned a valuable lesson!....MY only hope is to take it to a body shop Monday and see if the can mold new or fix the fiberglass guides. It seems like it is always something!!!!

Has anyone experienced this problem before and what was your experiences fixing it.

Here is once pic of a couple of the guides.

 

Use some 3M double sided tape (the gray stuff) underneath the lip of the weatherstrip on the "outside" portion. Clean the door and the weatherstrip with alcohol, put the double sided tape onto the underside of the weatherstrip, position it carefully where you want it and stick the tape down onto the door (the painted portion along the edge). Works like a charm and holds well, plus it's weatherproof too. If you want, you can use some tape along the inside door edge too where the busted holes are. Just use the good stuff (3M gray).

HTH

 

wow, that seems like very good advice. Have you had to do this before for the same issue. I will definitely look at that as a primary option.


Thanks again!

 

If he has the chunks that broke out, he could wet the broken edges with some polyester resin and push them back into place When the resin dried it would be almost as good as new. Just make sure you hold the pieces in place properly. Maybe figure out a way to get a clamp on them.

That is the wonderful thing about fiberglass SMC, it is very fixable.

 

Here is a pic of the door trim (seal)



Here is a couple more of the door and damage

 

I feel your pain......sounds like the 3m tape suggestion is a good one

 

You might also think about getting the shop manuals for your car if you're going to do your own work. ~$140 from helminc.com. Usually ~$75-100 in the classifieds if you keep an eye out. Might save some headaches such as this next time.



Rob

 

Thanks guys. I do appreciate all the feedback!

 

Yes. I had to replace one of these "window reveal" moldings and the replacement piece did not align properly. I tried to use a bit more force than I should have to slide the piece forward and experienced some cracking around these same holes. Not as bad as yours but cracking nonetheless. My biggest concern that when installed, the weatherstrip did not lay down flat on the rear portion of the outside (exposed) area. Well, to make a long story short, I used the 3M tape mentioned above to get a good fit and the tape holds very well and is invisible. It sure beats replacing a door or doing fiberglass work to try and repair the holes which were not in the right place to begin with.

HTH,
Robert