hatchback rubbers

Fantastic news.

How's things with regards to the Hatch seal trials?

Hey Baron

With the hatch seal, we are still waiting for the sample to come from AMCP. I think it will still be a couple of weeks off..


With the Rear Quarter Window Seal, I am expecting the first samples within the next 7 days..

cheers
Mick

Hi All

for those that have been following this thread, I had the pleasure of meeting up with Lance Corby today. Lance made the flight from Melbourne to Newcastle to see what the problems were with the door rubbers on the old Sunbird. See the pictures above.

Now, to get on with the latest..

The first picture above shows what has happened to the Rubber on the Passenger Side Rear Door..
After looking at it, both Lance and myself could not see why this had happened. Lance replaced the rubber with a new one (manufactured this year) and it seems to have fixed the problem.

The second picture above shows what has happened to the Rubber on the Drivers Side Front Door..
After some examinations, we found that this Door had approx. 10mm - 15mm play in it due to the upper hinge. This was not noticable until we checked it for vertical movement.

If you have a look at the following two pictures you will see the difference from when the door is in the position and on the first click of the striker bolt (picture 1), and where it sits once fully closed (Picture 2)..




So how does that effect the rubber seal?? What is happening is that when partially closed, the seal was sitting lower than where it should have been in the door opening and when the door was fully closed, it was compressing the the seal under the door opening rail (re red line) nd not above and on the front face of the area.



The third picture above shows what has happened to the Rubber on the Drivers Side Rear Door..
After some examinations, we found that this Door had problems in the fact that the front corner of the door glass channel was sitting too far in. See below..





Once we had worked out that this needed adjustment, we adjusted it and the problem with the door seal dissappeared...





As you can see, there were a number of different factors for why there were problems with the seals fitted to my car. It certainly opened my eyes to some of the problems that were occurring.

What I am happy with now is that the rubbers do fit well (albeit I need to fix a door hinge) and hopefully I won't be worrying about these for a long time..

To anyone else that is having problems a few things that might be causing them are:
Old versions of the seal,
Door Hinge Sag, and
Door alignment, both vertical and horizontal.

I hope that this helps a few people out and we can put the issues with the door seals behind us..

Russacf
I would be interested in what your thoughts are and if your doors suffer from sagging?


Finally, thanks to Lance and Rare Spares for taking the time and the considerable effort to come up and have a look at the problem.



cheers
Mick

Hi Mick,
I have just checked my doors and like most Hatch's mine sag as well. Lance picked it up on my car when he fitted the rubber, but it doesn't seem to be as bad as yours was. My rubbers are great and still have good form and the door closes easily. I have only driven the car a few times since, so it sits in the shed with the doors shut tight and this does not seem to be affecting the rubber at all.
High on my long list of things to do is to fit a new pin kit to the upper hinges on both front doors so they close nice.
It was good see you have a positive result with Lance and your door rubbers. He really has put a lot of time into solving this issue and he needs to be congratulated on the fact that he doesn't let things like this get the better of him.
The more guys like Rares adn Lance the better we all are with our cars.
Hope it all works out well.
Russ

Edited by russ acf, 05 June 2010 - 11:45 AM.