Replacing external door seal turns disaster
 

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
 

Hi zanahale, welcome to the forums.

Sorry to hear about your situation, it doesn't sound good at all.Maybethe body shop can figure something out for ya, if they can't, does it look like you may be able to use a goodwaterproofadhesive to reattach em? Just a thought.. Good Luck

RE: Replacing external door seal turns disaster
 

I had someone else mention that on another forum. Not a bad idea at all especially dollars wise. I would ultimately like to fix the 4 or 5 of them with fiberglass repair (composite??) but I'm afraid the price might be quite expensive.

RE: Replacing external door seal turns disaster
 

Can you post a picture of the area? unless I'm not seeing the one you posted, it didn't come thru. I agree with rshiver about the adhesive. 3M makes a ton of double sided tapes that are actually used by auto manufacturers right now. On the other hand ...if it's fiberglass it can be fixed. Good luck with it. Cheers

RE: Replacing external door seal turns disaster
 

3M makes an adheasive just for weatherstripping.

http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/3577/a5407br6.jpg

RE: Replacing external door seal turns disaster
 

Here is a pic of the door trim (seal) http://www.zanacom.com/door.jpg

Here isa couple of other pics of the damage

http://www.zanacom.com/fup2.jpg

http://www.zanacom.com/fup3.jpg

RE: Replacing external door seal turns disaster
 

A body shop should be able to fix that with no problem. They should be able fill the busted out area with fiberglass resin, then hollow it out with a drill bit to match the others after it hardens. I don't think you have much to worry about.

RE: Replacing external door seal turns disaster
 

rshiver,

AWESOME...that is exactly kinda what I was hoping for.

I'm going to call the local body shop tomorrow and see what they can do....

Thanks again!!!

RE: Replacing external door seal turns disaster
 

Anytime man, and good luck. Let us know how it turns out.

RE: Replacing external door seal turns disaster
 

Yup, any body shop that has fiberglass experience should be able to fix that with no problem. Boat repair shop could too. I would imagine that you could do it yourself if you wanted. Itwouldn't be too difficult, Perhaps messy but not difficult. How thick is the glass in that area? good luck with it. Cheers.