The best door seals?

[Rich]

Anyone got a favourite donor for effective seals? Or failing that a supplier with something more than the average door seal?

Rich

[ACourtney]

Hi Rich,

I keep a good range of seals in stock at competitive prices (as I'm not VAT registered), but your choice of seal can be limited by the thickness of the GRP flange around the door. Convertibles made by GTM tend to have thicker flanges than the original Midas cars. There is a good range of seals available for flange thicknesses up to 4mm thick, but only a couple for flanges that a thicker than 6mm. I will be travelling down your way (south Devon) some time this month so I could bring some samples down.
I will contact you once I know when I will be coming down.

Regards,

Alistair

[Rich]

Hi Alistair,

That would be great if you could, mine is a GTM-built car typically. Most of the leakage problems I'm having are around the hard top seals, I understand this is a GTM development too, so may have the same thick flanges. I do need to buy a top seal from you, I'll email you separately and send a cheque.

Cheers

Rich

[Alan D.]

Hello again Rich,

Hans provided the answer to me,(another non original idea by me!) in his description on his website. You need two seals, one on the door frame and another seal around the door. Two soft gaskets working together! I've tried one thick gasket, but you have difficulty in closing the doors! Have a look at some modern cars,the better quality ones have two seals. Two seals, two crush zones, more chance of sealing!

Alan

[Hans Efde]

Alan, that only works on the coupe which has a frame around the window. The Convertible hasn't. It's just the glass against a seal. The only way to prevent water ingress on the convertible is tight tolerances (difficult on a Midas) and a complicated seal that would fall over the edge of the glass. With the normal tubular seal water can get easily in between. Better already would be a labyrint seal, that's a tubular seal with extra edges on it. But the real cure would be a seal that guides the water over the edge of the glass. I suppose it's a matter of looking closely at professional hardtops, f.e. the Mazda MX5.

[Alan D.]

Yes Hans,

You are quite correct, but I have fitted a seal on the quarter-light frame, which goes some ways to stop the rattling and seals against the door frame, not as good as the coupe I know! On one trip out, when Stan was a passenger, he discovered that Cadbury's chocolate eclair papers, plug some of little holes and were quite waterproof! That's my excuse for having them in the car. Any port in a storm!

Alan