Lower Profile Door Seals?

[uhhair]

Okay, so anyone who has followed our original D for awhile (#2681) knows that our doors are the bane of our existance. Our doors have never closed right, and I've officially started the crusade to fix them. First on the agenda is making the door physically close.

Yes, I'm well aware that the door requires adjustments, shims, tinkering, etc etc. I'm not looking for comments on trying that stuff first, just FYI.

Does anyone know of a lower profile door seal for the D? I don't care if it's "stock" or not. Part of our problem is that even if you grease down the door seals, and the door is aligned, the seals create too much of a push on the door to close properly. I've had the newest set on our car for about a year now, greasing them down with furniture polish constantly, and they still do not create enough clearance for our door to close right.

I've seen on a couple of cars some perhaps aftermarket door seal, or another type of seal that doesn't seem to be as tall as the DMCH ones. Anyone know anything about this, know where I can get them, etc etc?

[dmc6960]

McMaster-Carr.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#bulb-seals/

Look into the "Edge-Grip Seals" and the "Adjustable Edge-Grip Seals".

Be aware though that if you replace ALL of your weatherstripping with one of these generics, the door may close easier but it may not completely seal out water. Did you try Byrne Henninger's (http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?6738-Door-Hell!-Either-not-closing-or-refusing-to-open&p=97915&viewfull=1#post97915) adjustment procedure?

[Farrar]

Didn't Señor Esteban Arroz replace his seals with a lower-profile bulb seal on the body combined with a squishy foam weatherstrip attached to the door? I wonder how well that worked.

[uhhair]

McMaster-Carr.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#bulb-seals/

Look into the "Edge-Grip Seals" and the "Adjustable Edge-Grip Seals".

Be aware though that if you replace ALL of your weatherstripping with one of these generics, the door may close easier but it may not completely seal out water. Did you try Byrne Henninger's (http://dmctalk.org/showthread.php?6738-Door-Hell!-Either-not-closing-or-refusing-to-open&p=97915&viewfull=1#post97915) adjustment procedure?

+1 for this link, it even has measurements. I'll go measure the DMCH ones now and try to pick one slightly shorter. I'm not worried about them not keeping water out, obviously with the fit issues I'm having, even slightly smaller ones will press up against the doors enough to seal out water.

I've done the alignment thing numerous times, and still do. With the seals off, when I align the doors, I can get them nearly perfect. The seals are just too big for my doors, even after applying polish/grease to them. The fiberglass around all my doors is also WAY too thick, about twice what you see on the average D (their QA dropped the ball on mine in regards to this aspect), so I'm going to try grinding that down too, but I'd like to see if maybe the seals could make it easier than taking a grinder to my car first.

Anyone tried these and had luck/no luck?

[jawn101]

Very interested to hear the results here as well. I have issues with seals keeping my passenger side door from aligning properly, when it is dead on perfect with no seals at all.

[uhhair]

Aftermarket seals are affordable, so this seems like a test that is easy to perform and see the results. Can test the water in the roof with a quick car wash too. I will report back on this one.

[jawn101]

Cool. It looks like Edge-Grip style 1 is the best bet, but not sure about the sizes yet.

[dmc6960]

I have seen edge-grip style 1 on other cars before. (John Hervey may have sold it at some point). Looks out of place to me, but if it works best for a particular car you cant beat something that works.

I still like my 2003/2004 foam-rubber DMCH seal the best. Very little wear after 9 years and it seats perfectly without folding in.

[Delorean Industries]

The seals are not the problem. Extensive work to the fiberglass is required to keep seals from wearing prematurely. I have this down to a science and just fixed an "unfixable" by others door set up. Very time consuming and easy to damage the car if not completed properly.

[uhhair]

Yeah, I'm I know that my fiberglass edges definitely have issues as well, but before I go the drastic route of taking the grinder to the body, I'm going to try this and see what happens. Worst that happens is I waste a few dollars and I'm back where I started.