Snake Bite

Hi All just wondering if anyone has replaced these and if so do they have any tips.

Ive been out to the shed to have a look and it looks tricky.

I would like to do it as easy as possible without dammaging anything (as we all do no doubt).

Do you have to remove the door trim etc to change this or can you do it without pulling it all apart. The retaining clips on the old rubber seem pretty much attached and Im not sure how much force to apply.

Usuually I try to fix these type of things up and end up F it; so I thought Id give here a go, anyhow keen to hear of peoples experience etc

Cheers

Road runner

I need to do the same thing Snake Bite, you mean the 'door belts' that sit between glass and door?

Do you have New/old ones or repro strips? I've got repro but they look bloody huge, praying I'm not going to have to remove too much just to get access to fitting them.

Snake Bite

Hi Road Runner, yeah they are the ones. I have repo ones too (I doubt you could get NOS) they arnt too bad compared to the originals, although I had to send 1 back because it was cr@p.

They look big but thats right, Ive been to the wreckers and tried to "learn" from the cars there, and picked up some idea,but all those doors have no door trims.

Ive asked on the GT site but didnt get much help (most only seem interested in talking about car costs) & Ive looked in the manual.

Ive come to the conclusion its gonna be a sh#t job and I'll have to take the door trim off. (the guy from GT performance thought ya had to take the windows out!!)

If you hear anything let me know, I'll keep ya posted

Chartoo

I was mucking around on my ute and took of mine, same door i think.
There is little clips on the back of the strips that have to be reached from inside the door. they have to be pushed up, with a flat screwdriver, till they can be pulled towards the inside of the car. then the whole strip slides out . pain in the arse really . dont know if this helps. mine maybe even be differnt to yours

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Snake Bite

Thanks for the info, thats what a guy on the GT site said. So is the only way to get to those clips is to take the door trim off???

Do you have to remove the window or anything else?

Road runner

I dont mind removing the door trim that's easy enough, just got to take your time and be extra careful with the plastic chrome surround on the door handle (something you wont have to worry about Snake, being an XC) but I dont wanna mess around removing glass or much else for that matter.

Road runner

Good news Snake, got out and fitted one side of my belts this weekend, I took off the door the trim, but looking at it realised I didn't need to. I'd say things are probably easier with the door trims off, but you only really need access to two retaining screws at each end of the door which are reachable with the door trim on. You will need to remove the rubber block at the front of the door though, but that's only three screws and easily removed.

You should be able to grab your old weatherseal belts with your windows fully wound down after unscrewing the two screws at each end and then lift off, or pull the seal from it's clips. Once the old one is out of the way just slide the new seal in place at an angle. Chartoo is right about the clips on the belts themselves but you dont have to push up, a well placed (preferably blunt) screwdriver pushed directly against them should do the trick. They make a nice audible clunk when they've sunk in.

Main thing I'd do before all of this though is size up your new belts with the old and mark up the holes, then check 'em and size them up again! Mine didn't have holes and required drilling, and even after matching them up one hole was preventing one of the clips from fully sinking into it's hole.

The rear quarters were even worse, but I wont go into that and sounds like you wont have to.

Snake Bite

Thanks Road Runner for the information, every little bit helps. Im going to give it a go this weekend so I'll let ya know how I go.

I got new outer weatherstrips for the rear quaters also, the ones on the car arnt as bad as the doors but I thought I would do it in 1 go. Have you changed them as well? What are ya tips.

Now that you have your new door ones in how satisfied are you with the fit and look as aposed to the original ones?

Again thanks for your help, I'll keep ya posted

Road runner

The rear quarters are a bit more confined, and unlike the front you WILL have to take the rear trims off to get at the retaining screws, or at least two of them at each end. I found because they required more drilling (the repro seals didn't have any holes) it was more of a finnicky job. I suggest taking off the rear chrome trim on the rear quarters as a guide as they have holes you can easily mark up against, but these are large rectangular holes so you will still have to be pretty precise and hit them dead centre to get a nice snug fit. When you have the trim in, you will also need to make sure all the screws line up well, or you could face the problem I had with the first screw (closest to the front of the car) that will rub against the little quarter window's chrome. You may even face this problem anyway, as the new rubber tends to push the window out more.

Just take extra care when winding down the rear window to see, or you may scratch the chrome. Despite screwing in this one screw as far as it would go it would still rub, so I got a little dremel tool to sand back the head of it just to give the two some space.

As far as the fit, they are good, a lot better than I was expecting to be honest, though they did require a bit of work, dont expect a quick job! They could even do with a few mm's trimmed here and there still. Surprising how better and cleaner they appear from inside the car, with nice shiny black rubber rather than the fading grey things I had with bits falling off of them!

Snake Bite

Thanks again Road Runner you have provided invaluable information...Cheers.
The rears sound like a sh#t job alright..........hmmmm maybe they'll be ok for a few more years :-)
But your right about them having no holes sounds paiful.... oh well thats part of having old cars.

Cheers again