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Sealing your doors on a budget

10K views 8 replies 6 participants last post by  66risingstar 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
For those of you not familiar with the 62 Galaxie it seems to be the red headed stepchild when it comes to aftermarket parts availability. I know what you Galaxie owners of other years are thinking, “no, my year is the “red headed step child”!!!” Regardless of who has it the worst the reality is there are not a lot of parts available in the aftermarket for Galaxies in general. To make matters worse when you look in the catalogs The majority of the parts that are available for a 62 Galaxie are for the 2-door, and of course my car is a 4-door.
I was reminded of all this when it came time to redo the weatherstripping and beltliners on my car. I started my project calling around to all the main suppliers of Galaxie specific parts looking for the replacement pieces. As to be expected I was able to find 2-door weather stripping but nothing was available for a 4-door. At that point the thought crossed my mind to purchase two sets of the 2-door weather stripping and then modify them to fit my 4 door application but this would have been really expensive as a complete set of 2-door weatherstripping was over $200.00 and I was not willing to spend $400.00 and still have to modify the parts make it work.
I decided I was going to find another way to get the job done, and armed with a chunk of the existing weather stripping I went down to Napa and found some generic Ford type replacement weatherstripping.




The original weatherstripping is on the left and the replacement stripping is on the right.
It comes in 15’ roles and I purchased 4 of them at $25.00 each, figuring each door would use the better part of a full role. In retrospect to save an extra $25.00 I could have done it with 3 roles, but I would have had to piece together one door and because of that the extra $25.00 was money well spent. Also while I was at Napa I purchased a tube of black 3M weatherstrip glue.

The actual project took about two days. I decided to do the project one door at a time and with the door I was working on off the car. I could have been done it with the doors on the car however it is much easier to complete the entire process with the door off the car because you have easy access to all sides of the door. To provide a good place to set my doors I set up two saw horses and covered them with soft cloth so that when the doors were set on the sawhorses the door’s paint would not get scratched.


When it came to actually removal of the doors I found it was easier to leave the hinges on the car even though it meant removing the door panels to disconnect the doors from the hinges. In my opinion removing the door panels was actually a good thing so that I did not accidentally get weatherstrip glue on the panels. Once I had the door off I set it up on the saw horses and began removing the old weatherstripping.

As I pulled the original stripping off, most of it was the same shape and size as the stripping I purchased from Napa. There were a few exceptions: the upper corners of each door, the front edge on the back doors and one spot on the front door which had a flat piece that molded the contour of the door. Being the 40+ year old weatherstripping most of it came off with little to no effort, but in a few places I had to use a gasket scraper being very careful not to gouge the paint. As I was removing the old stripping I paid special attention to how it was attached to the door and exactly where it went. Once I had all the old stripping off, I used some paint prep to clean the area where the stripping had been.


The solvent gave me a nice clean surface to glue my new weather stripping to with out damaging the paint. From there I started at the corners and began gluing the new weatherstripping to the door. To do this I applied glue to the stripping a few inches at a time and then position it on the door holding it in place for about 30 seconds. I then repeated on the next 4” of door with the same technique and continued to repeat the steps until I got all the way around the door and back to the corner. The problem areas mentioned above were resolved as follows: I made my seam on the corners to deal with the 90 that the stripping had to make.


the generic stuff worked fine on the front edge of the back door where the shape of the original stripping was a little different and to resolve the flat section, I took a knife and carefully cut away the body of the stripping, leaving the original flat section installed on the car. And then glued the new striping to both the door and the flat section.


I found as I was installing the new stripping that one major advantage of doing it “one door at a time” is as I worked on a door I had the door from the other side as a reference if I was not sure where the new stripping went or to what surface it was mounted I could simply look at the other door.


Once the new stripping was installed and given some time to dry I reinstalled the door and adjusted it for the correct fit. I couldn't be happier with the results. Looks as good as stock and seams to make a nice seal.


Replacing the beltliner.
Weatherstripping is of course only one part of the door that seals, the other is the felt strip that runs along the side windows. These strips are referred to as beltliner. Just like with the weather stripping I was unable to find replacements for my 62 Galaxie 4-door. However the sales rep I was talking to at one of the Galaxie supply places told me that Dennis Carpenter sold 8’ pieces of belt liner that could be cut to fit. Keeping in mind that both the inside of the window as well as the outside need this stripping I ordered four 8' long pieces to insure I had enough.

The replacement beltliner was 1/2" wide and about 3/16” thick with a stainless steel edge similar to the original. It was a little skinnier than original beltliner which I believe is 3/4" but that really did not effect function or application.


As with the weather stripping the first step in replacing the beltliner was removing the old parts. To do this I first lowered the window catch so the glass could be rolled down past the original beltliner. This was easy to do since my door panels were already off the doors. I then removed the old outer beltliner which was held in with staples, except on the ends where it was screwed in. Staples also attached the inner beltliner. It however was easier to deal with because it was attached to a trim piece that had already been removed from each door.


To remove the staples I first used pliers to straighten the crimped ends of the staples


I then pried the belt liner off with a screw driver


Once the old beltliner was off I used it as reference in cutting the replacement beltliner to length. I found that a hack saw works best for cutting the beltliner to length it however in retrospect I think a cutoff wheel would have worked better still. I learned the hard way that trying to cut it with something like bolt cutters disfigured the beltliner too much.
With the old strips removed and the new ones cut to length, I cleaned the area where the new ones would be applied with paint prep and, and test fit the new pieces to make sure there were the correct fit.

As far as reattaching the new beltliner the factory type staples were not an option and I really did not want to use screws or pop-rivets because I was concerned about scratching the glass should a pop rivet or screw work loose. As with many things that I am working on I decided to research what other people had done to secure their beltliner. After talking to several places it was recommended to me more than once to use double sided adhesive foam tape. I know it sounds hokey, but I talked to quite a few "professional" auto restores and they recommend this technique. The advantage to the tape is that it holds well and you don't have to deal with rivets and screws. I used 3M UHB (Ultra High Bond), which I got in a large role from Ebay.


I cut it in to thin strips and then applied the tape to the new belt liner. From there I pealed of the protective backing and applied the beltliner to the door. Making my own beltliner replacements worked just as well as making my own weather stripping and was once again less expensive than what the kit probably would have been had there been one available for my application.



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#2 ·
Thanks for posting this write-up. I'm hitting up the local suppliers for the materials. It will be a while before I'm ready for it, but some of the tasks (like the belt-liners) I can do in advance, right after repainting the door caps and set them aside for installation later.
 
#3 ·
Thanks for the tip! I'll be checking this out for my car. You don't mention it, but have you also replaced the glass channel felt? I need to find a generic replacement for the lock side for my 4dr Fairlane which is proving elusive (the hinge side is readily available but not the lock side).
 
#5 ·
Very nice write up!

I have a '65 Galaxie 2 door and the weather strip around the 2 doors, quarter windows and trunk are completely shot and been asking around for part prices would've been close to $600!! It's safe to say that I will be using your method.

Thanks again and keep up the good work.
 
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