Top of door / window trims

[cawthrm]

A subject that has come up before, but to re-open - does anyone have a solution for the top of door trims (2003 XK8) ? This is the graphite coloured or black strip that appears to be only cosmetic (doesn't form the window seal). Jaguar want £300 for one side and are out of stock for the other side.
IN my case the painted wider metal part of the strip is in good condition but the lower rubber part is badly bubbled by aluminium corrosion from beneath. Anyone know of a supplier, or if not someone who would repair?

[mike020150]

If you scan the online copies of the magazine and the XK8 Forum column over the past couple of years, you will see plenty of mentions of this problem and the solutions that members have adopted, all the way from cheap DIY to buying new trim from Jaguar. Mike.

[painter]

Hi Cawthrm,
had mine taken off and re-sprayed (original jag. colour). They look new, but care must
be taken in removing the front and rear screen cover strips, very fragile.

[J44EAG]

I`ve used long life vinyl sticky backed sign writing material before now on chrome trim that was looking tired. In some cases I was able to match the car colour and on others I contrasted to good effect. Stick to trim having given it a wipe over with acetone to de-grease. Then trim around the part with a sharp blade and tuck the edges under.

Quite useful on roof or gutter trims or on chrome boomerang trims which always get scuffed in Tescos car park. Any subsequent repair is easily sorted.

Mike K

[cawthrm]

OK, so here was how I got on, some of this may be useful to others.
Rubber around the A pillar and roof line where the window closes against it - I did purchase the V shaped rubber strips available on ebay for £17.95 and they worked perfectly, glued into place once cleaning up the landing area of the trim piece, leaving it in place. You need one length each side for a coupe, but cut one in half for each side of a convertible (goes up the A pillar only).

Then for the waist strip along the top of the door itself at the bottom of the window, there are indeed different pieces of advice in the club magazine - look at Nov 15, Jan 16, Apr 16, Jun 16. I followed the advice to contact Seals + Direct Ltd who sold me parts with the following advice:
'Use part number ETS1395 which has a 27mm blade pushed on horizontally with the blade towards the glass. The Flock lined FWR168 can be bonded to the underside of the blade to extend the blade to the glass and reduce sticksion as the window goes up and down. This method does work but does differ from the original'.
So this I did, but note you have to cut the 27mm blade as this is significantly high than the original which is about 13mm. No problem however with a straight edge and a sharp blade.
It's not perfect, the blade does not lean into the window glass as much as the original resulting in some slight gapping, but visually it's very good.
I must admit I did struggle to keep the aluminium strip itself in perfect order (coloured Dorchester Grey on my car) - the strip itself was in good condition to reuse with the new rubbers. As others have written, it's the metal reinforced original rubber and its adhesive which creates all the mess / corrosion. But getting the old piece removed from the strip was difficult and the strip is pretty fragile, easily bends and kinks as you try to detach the corroded piece. So be careful, because it's that piece which seems to be impossible to get hold of as a replacement part.