VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND NEWER 1946-1948 1948 Fleetline Aerosedan Door Weather Seals

Greetings,

I searched the forum, but I could not find any information on the the door weather seals for my 48 Fleetline (2 door). My original weather seals look like it came in 4 or 5 separate pieces:

1. From the hinge pillar across the top of and down the side of the door where the door latch is and stops near the bottom of the rear of the front door.

2. It looks like there is a separate rubber corner seal at the rear of the front door.

3. The door bottom weather seal that is glued down and held together with clips.

4. Possibly another separate rubber corner seal at the front of the door.

5. The door hinge seal that is held in with glue and an about an 18" steel retainer with 7 screws.

I ordered the door hinge seal from Chev's of the 40's last year. I looked in their catalog, and I believe they have the door bottom seal, but I am not sure if they have the correct seals for the corner(s) of the door, or the top/side of the door. Has anyone ordered the weather seals from any of the vendors and do you have any installation tips or tricks? Especially for the door hinge seal. The retainer had staples and glue attached to that part of the weather seal, and it doesn't look too easy to reinstall.

The reason I am asking is that my door weather seals are starting to deteriorate and need to be replaced.

Many thanks in advance.

Tony

Well, I called Chevs of the 40's and ordered the door weatherstripping kit. It's made from Steele Rubber and consists of 2 pieces.

1. The hinge pillar piece

2. The rest of the door.

It looks like it will do the job. Fit appears to be good

I'll try to get the passenger door finished by this weekend. The tricky part is trying to reinstall the metal trim piece on the hinge pillar side, as the door hold open lever is in the way. It's a real tight fit with the door hold open lever in the way. I'll remove that for access and it should go in pretty easily. If anyone is interested, I can add to this post on what my experience was when installing the weather seals. Just let me know!

Tony

By all means share the experience with us...let us know a thing or two about the installation of weather stripping...problems/solutions,etc. I've a '47 Fleetmaster I'd like to re-strip this year.

Yes, I agree with kevin47. I will be doing my 48 sometime this year. What glue are you using?

Hi Guys,

Well I did the job. It was kind of difficult. I will start by saying that I ordered the front door weather seals from Chev's of the 40's. They were pricey at $221.00 for the pair, but I bit the bullet and ordered them. The seals come from Steele rubber and are excellent in quality. They came in 2 pieces, one piece for the door hinge side, and the other piece for the door top, latch side, and bottom. Now, I will lay out the steps I took to get them installed. Please note that these instructions are for a 1948 Chevrolet Fleetline Aerosedan only. I have no knowledge on how other models door weather seals are installed.

If you have the doors off the car, this would be the easiest way to install the seals. Installing the door hinge side of the weather seal is a bit difficult, especially at the bottom of the door on the hinge side.

If you have the shop manual, go to the page were it provides instructions on how to remove/install the weather seals. I found the shop manual to be very useful.

I started by pulling the old weather seals out. On the door hinge side, there is/should be a steel strip with 7 screws in it that go over this weather seal. You will need to remove this steel strip before you can remove the seal. 1 screw is at the very bottom of the door edge. If you have the door off the car, you can remove the bottom screw very easily. If not, then you will need to either access the screw location by removing the step plate/door scraper (Which you will need to do later) and then try to unscrew the bottom screw. I chose to use a cold chisel to pull/tear/rip the screw out. I did not reinstall this last screw when I installed the door hinge weather seal.

TIP! I recommend that you removed the door hold open mechanism screw from the A pillar edge before starting. You will need to remove the housing or pocket the door hold open mechanism slides into as well. This is held in by 2 screws and pops out. Make sure you put a rod or long screw in the door hold open rod when you do this or the rod will fall in the door. Ask me how I know, I had to pull off the door panel to retrieve the door hold open rod that fell in on my passenger door.

On the bottom edge of the door, there were 6 retaining clips holding the weather seal in. You will need to remove the clips and pull the seal off the door. The rest of the door seals removed easily.

Once the seals are off the door, you will need to clean out the surfaces of all the old glue and rubber. I used a combination of a box cutter, razor scraper, screwdriver, lacquer thinner and graffiti removal spray called 'Goof Off' to clean off these surfaces. The door will need to be as clean as possible for the new seals stay glued on.

Next, I cleaned off and painted the steel strips. When you look at the steel strips, there were a bunch of staples that held the weather seal to the steel strip. I removed all the staples, but I did not reinstall them as I did not think that they would be necessary. Once they were cleaned up, I laid one of the steel strips on the hinge side seal and marked the screw holes with a silver 'sharpie'. You can use any method for marking the holes on the seal. I then drilled out the marked locations on the seal with a drill bit. I started with a small pilot hole and worked my way up so I didn't tear or make the holes too large. I test fitted the seal onto the steel strip, took it to the car, test fitted it there before I went further. All looked good. Now onto the installation!

Installing the hinge side weather seal.

Remove the foot scraper as outlined in the shop manual. For those that do not have the shop manual, here is what you will need to do:

Remove the lower body trim moulding. This is held on by 4 - 5 clips that are held on by 5/16 screws on the front fender, and moulding clips along the lower body. Be very careful popping off the trim along the bottom of the body. I pried up the moulding just enough to get a wood strips on either side of the clip and then 'popped' off the trim from the body. there are about 8 of these clips along the bottom of the moulding. The last body clip (Near the rear wheel) is also held in with a 5/16 screw. There is one visible exterior screw that will need to be removed and you can remove the trim. Now that the trim is out of the way, you can remove the foot scraper. Remove the 5 screws on the cover plate on top of of the foot scraper, then you see the foot scraper is held on with on bolt and one large 'clutch head' screw on the side of the foot scraper. The clutch head screwdriver bits I had were either too large or too small to fit, so I had to remove this screw with a small pair of vice grips. Both these screws were really stuck and probably had never been removed from the factory. I sprayed Aero Kroil at the attachment points and waited about 10 minutes and they came right out. Aero Kroil, or Kroil is one of the best sprays I use to loosen old, rusty bolts. Once you have the foot scraper removed, you have access to the bottom of the door edge on the hinge side.

I used 3M super adhesive weather strip glue. You will glue each surface (Weather seal and the door edge), wait about 5 minutes or when the glue starts to get tacky, and press the seal on the surface. Wear latex or nitrile gloves if you can, this stuff is messy! On the door hinge side, make sure you re-install the door hold open pocket before you glue down the seal. Also, you will want to test fit the seal before gluing it down and make any adjustments *before* you glue it down. Once it is in place correctly, put the screws back in place.

Top and side of the door

Nothing too difficult installing the seal. Trim as necessary and butt the end of the seal with the door hinge seal then glue down. On the latch side of the door, there is a clip that holds the door lock in place. I put very little glue in this area in the event I had to ever remove the clip that holds the door lock in place. Test fit and trim as necessary before gluing down.

Bottom of the door

On the door bottom, there are 4 drainage vents. Make sure that you *do not* glue the weather seal over these vents. I put the glue along the top of the drainage vent only. You will then re-install the clips on the bottom of the door. Test fit and trim as necessary before gluing down.

If you order the Steele weather seals, you will have to trim the seal some as they give you additional material to work with. I hope this information helps. As I noted, this job would have been much easier with the doors off, but with a little effort and patience, it can be done with the doors on. Let me know if you have any questions and I'll do my best to answer them.

Tony

Kevin47, when and if you redo yours I need a really big favor. After following this thread I went to my big-box-o-parts to locate the front weather strip with the metal retainer. Well I found them, or should I say what is left of them. The metal retainer is 1/3 rusted away and what remains is bent every which way. So if you or anyone out there has this piece off and will make me a template to send to a metal man so I can have new ones fabed I will forever be grateful. Maybe sometime in the next 8 to 12 months.