Replacing external door seal turns disaster
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Replacing external door seal turns disaster - 10/14/2007 10:11:08 AM
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zanahale
Posts: 6
Joined: 8/28/2006
Status: offline
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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.
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RE: Replacing external door seal turns disaster - 10/14/2007 10:29:38 AM
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rshiver
Posts: 381
Joined: 8/4/2007
Status: offline
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Hi zanahale, welcome to the forums.
Sorry to hear about your situation, it doesn't sound good at all. Maybe the body shop can figure something out for ya, if they can't, does it look like you may be able to use a good waterproof adhesive to reattach em? Just a thought.. Good Luck
_____________________________
"Giving up" is never an option.
..............(o o)
~~~o00o~(_)~o00o~~~
2000 Limited Edition Ford F-350 Lariat 4x4 Dually, 7.3 Liter Powerstroke Diesel
1985 L98 Corvette
1978 Chevy Camaro LT
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