replaced door seal rubber

[Brakebuster]

my driver side rear door had a very poorly door seal rubber ( the one on the body ), it was split, damaged and worst of all had been ' masticked in ' by the PO all along the bottom and up to the door lock striker , and the seal was completely hanging out all along the bottom

its a bit confusing as there seem to be a few different generations of these door seal rubbers , but i have been lucky enough to have a 1993 XJ40 turn up in my local scrap yard, and its one of this take it off yourself and pay peanuts for it , i managed to rescue all the door seals and the outside window trims that are very rare and very expensive new, all for £8 all in , lol

so today i decided to tackle this job , removing the old seal i could see just how bad it was, then there was the mastic, about a meter of it in total , the problem is that it gets right inside the seal channel , and is a royal pita to get out, but i eventually removed it all , every single trace of it, and cleaned up the channel , i used some black paint to cover any scratches i caused, but this was only inside the channel and the paintwork on the outside is perfect ,

then the tricky part of installing the new seal , i started at the top right with the 90º corner , and with some gentle pushing and hammering with the side of my fist i worked it all the way round , you can imagine how sore my fingers are now, lol

then i replaced the tread plate and it look a million times better , and i would imagine will reduce some road noise as well as actually working as a seal.......

its the small fiddly jobs that can keep a car looking good , driver door seal to do next, luckily , no mastic..........

BB

[PeterDavisX300]

Very good for you. I'm about to pay about £300 for the last waist-seal on my X300. No alternative, it's the only one that's now 'new-stock' so it's that or have one awful-looking chrome-waist-seal. I've replaced the other three, and what a difference. There are no scrappies like that up here (Very-North-Scotland) there used to be about 20 years ago, and he specialised in Mk10 Jaguars! I think he still has a couple buried down by the canal! Good luck to you matey!

[Brakebuster]

quick update

all four of the door seals that are mounted on the body of the car have now been replaced,

possibly due to the heat of its years in Spain , but all four had deteriorated and had split in several places m mostly entry exit wear points.

with all four now replaced the reassuring thud of the doors closing is now back , and the weather is kept out of the interior , the only other thing i had to do to replace the seals was a very small amount of rust remedy and paint to the passenger front door at the front bottom where water had collected , really was a small amount of corrosion to the seal retaining strip , shouldn't give me any troubles now

BB

[J44EAG]

As you say, Vince, you have to keep up with the remedial maintenance. I know how quickly things deteriorate if left unchecked. I`m doing that myself on my 350. Life in an open car park together with clumsy parking techniques of others doesn`t help either.

Looks like I`m into a wheel referb once the summer arrives. Corrosion, road rash and tyre fitters don`t help much. I have to tell myself that a twelve year old car will need wheel attention after all those years and 86k miles of use. It will all come good and I can spend some time getting things looking right. Last year was a serious mechanical mission so I suppose efforts this year will be of a more cosmetic nature.

Mike K

[oldtimer]

Well done BB, and Mike K keep up the good work

[ChrisDixon]

I have the drivers door seal to do on mine, is it "just" a press in job or does it need glue (mine's a '91 MY car)?

Maybe its because its a '40 there were all sorts of small jobs to do on mine, and it is satisfying to find replacement bits and tick them off the list. Mine included:
- fixing the electric aerial, I found you could buy just the mast to fit to the unit (bit fiddly!)
- fuel tank sender (the fun here was guessing how much fuel was actually in the tank)
- wiper parking (that hidden 10A fuse)
- central locking
- heater controls
- headlining (loathe to pay £200 for a new board I refaced the original in perforated vinyl)
- armrest lid
The only thing I haven't been able to fix properly is the fuel filler rubber seal which is an unobtainable part and I've not managed to find a good used one. I wonder if I could make an X300 one fit?

[Brakebuster]

Chris

yes, the door aperture seal is a simple push fit, you do have to remove the tread plate first as it ' pinches ' tight the rubber seal at the bottom ,

replacement seals are best started off at the top corner, and use a soft mallet to gently tap in the seal as you go , the tricky bits behind the door hinges need some patience and strong fingers

BB

[db40]

Door seals are not at all easy to put in! My car uses the earlier type - the door seals used on your 1994MY are quite different and much meatier. I bought a 1994MY driver's door seal in error a few years back and though it fitted in the channel without a problem, the drivers door wouldn't shut without REALLY slamming it! That wasn't a great day - the door seal took a good couple of hours to fit on - and was on the car significantly less long than that!