Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Taking it slow: The trunk seal

Leaks.  That's what this car has going for it at the moment. 
We've discovered a massive amount of rust in the trunk.  There's also the issue of the soaking wet (not damp) carpet on the front floor boards.

Here's how my day went when I decided I would just change out the seals/weatherstripping on the doors and trunk...
Start with the trunk, to get a feel for working with the molded rubber and weatherstripping adhesive.  Then, the doors will be a snap.
Not really how it went, at all, though.  First of all, it took me about an hour to finally get the old adhesive completely off, so that I could have a nice clean surface for the new seal.
Well, surely putting in the new seal won't take too long, right?  Wrong.
It's not easy maneuvering that snake of a thing!  Add in the fast drying adhesive, I was working a couple feet at a time...when I finally got the nerve to put adhesive to car and seal; and, eventually seal to car. 
I couldn't remember how the old one looked when it was on!  I didn't know how to put the new one on!! Damn these parts with no instructions!  Thank you, YouTube!
I nearly put the silly thing on wrong side out!
But, at the end of the day, that new trunk seal made it onto the car.  Score one for me...first bit of new, installed!
Here are some pics (most are pretty much impossible to figure out, so I'll add captions):
Old seal...new seal

Lots of nasty old adhesive to remove...an hour with some GooGone seemed to do the trick.
Shiny new edge to adhere my new seal!

New seal! (Outside, looking into the trunk)
I never got to the door seals.  This little project took me almost an entire afternoon (of course, I also had other things going on that day, but the point is there was no time left!)
I still have the roof rails to replace.  And, of course, the very next day we had rain all day.  Good for checking my work, I suppose.  The trunk seal worked like a champ!
The bad news?  Well, that wasn't the biggest problem with the trunk leak.  The real problem, now discovered, is the water trailing across the bottom of the rear window seal, into the corner, and drip-drip-dripping into the trunk.  I watched a nice little puddle forming in the trunk.
I didn't want to replace the windows.  Doing some research, it has come to my attention that replacing the rear window trim on a '67 Barracuda is better done by converting to a '68 trim...the pretty shiny 'chrome' trim.  For now, I'm just getting it ready for another winter of sitting in the snow by adding a clear seal around the outside. 
Discouraged again, I took a look at my handy work with the trunk seal...surprisingly, that was enough to convince me that, though it may take longer than I'd like, I still want to finish this!

1 comment:

  1. Hey, nice job! I hope to be replacing the trunk seal on my '64 this winter. I took the old one off a looong time ago so really no hope of remembering how to re-install. I think I took pictures but if not I'll remember to check out youtube.

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