Fitting new door rubbers to FC

[Garry (Guest)]

 I recently purchased from Rare Spares, a new set of door rubbers for my FC, only to find that they are to big in profile and the doors don't close. My investigations found that they are made in Taiwan and are the only ones avaliable. Has anyone encounted the same problem and if so how did you overcome it. Hoping someone out there can help.

Best regards,
Garry

[chris stokes]

Garry

I restored my FC 10 years ago and bought the " every body rubber you can get" package from rare spares.

I had a similar problem with the door rubbers being too thick.

To their credit , however most of the others were of high quality and fitted very well.

If you intend to keep the door seals , what I could suggest is

1. clean out the old tracks extra well

2. trim any dags or extra thickness away with a new stanley blade from the side that will be hidden

3. use an adhesive better than just contact cement. If I had my time again I would have used Sikaflex PRO 2HP. This comes in white or black in the standard 310 ml cartridge.
This is an EXCELLENT product that I have been using for years and you can use it for just about anything.

4. Use a small paint scraper or similar to really work the seal into position. This way the seal is not so proud and the curled  lip can be set so it always goes under the door frame when it closes.

5. After the doors are closed on the seal , a small memory line develops after a while . I you have the skill ( read guts ) you can use this mark to further trim the seal as required . If your seals are the same as mine , they really do bulge out in places and the appearance is not good.

Good luck

Chris.

[Phil Gray]

I got a set of rubbers from Spectrum Rubber & Panels (prev. Old Auto Rubbers) about 5 years ago and had no porblems with fit.    

[leigh]

Garry,
I've fitted a full set of Rares door rubbers to my FC & it took me a couple of attempts until I got the right knack (already had the left one ). I'll agree the rubbers aren't exactly the same as the original ones but are nevertheless pretty good and don't need trimming in any way.
You should expect the door will need adjusting as the new rubbers take a while to squish down. I didn't need to re-adjust mine for ages after.
You do need to make sure the channels are cleaned out of any old glue & crap. I found the special "difficult rubbers" glue made by Loctite that Rares sell is just the "magic" you need to get a good fit. You only need a pin-head drop every 100mm or so and if it's done on a warm day it will stick immediately so you need to have a practice fit first.
I would assume your main area of concern is where the top edge of the front door curves over. If not fitted properly about 150mm of seal will bulge out between the door & body. The original rubbers had a different profile for this part and would sit flat against the body a lot better. I found that if you curl the outer edge of the seal over in the direction it should sit and use just the slightest amount of glue to stick it down, then after a couple of months it will stay flat & you can break  it away where glued to get a better water tight seal.  Hope this helps

[ljm]

Contact Bob Or Lance at Rare Spares they have a fitting service and have fitted many of these seals

bpyz@rarespares.net.au

lcorby@rarespares.net.au

[Garry]

My sinceere thanks to the people with emails I received in support of my request for help to fit door rubbers to my FC.

After spending a lot of frustrating hours and money I stumbled on the exact profile of the origonal FC door & boot rubber  in a foam & rubber store on Queenslands Gold Coast. Perfect fit.
Thanks again
Garry