I put new upper n lower door seals on about four yrs ago and they just this past summer got soft enough to shut fairly easy. At first I had to slam so hard I thought I was gonna burst a glass out!
Came from a vendor at top of the page ...never buy rubber seals again unless it's the two that B-nut73 mentioned!
Same experience here w/ door seals bought from a vendor advertising in the center at the top of this page w/ an 800# in their ad.
I just got done w/ a major top rebuild project, new & more bows, insulation, new paint inside & out, new custom headliner. This was major process that I spent 100's of hours on very meteculously rebuilding / restoring and making better. After getting the top lined up very nicely, and already perfect fitting & aligned doors, I out all new rubber seals on ALL of the doors.
The problems started when the rubber for bottom of the rear hatch door didn't fit as well as I thought it should. I worked and worked and modified the rubber w/ some shims to finally get a very good fit...next onto the front doors.....disaster!
I installed the new upper & lower rubber for the front doors. Before getting serious about sticking everything together for a "final fit", I pre-fitted all of the new rubber and checked all the clearences...it all looked good. I made sure both screws fit perfectly for the front & back upper sections of the lower rubber, double checked that my fit was good in the transition area between the flange and the one-side glue only area's where the bottom of the door frame radius starts up. The only thing I couldn't ck before putting everything in place one final time was the compression fitting w/ the doors closed before glueing it all in place.
I glued everything in place, and all aspect of the new rubber seals fit perfectly.....because I spent so much time methodically pre fitting everything before glueing the final time. I actually taped off where the beads of 3m sealer would be....very, VERY anal about getting a perfect fit. I wited for everything to fully dry in the shop overnight, and then came back the next day to shut the doors.....OMG. I'm not just disapointed, I was pissed off! These POS rubber seals they sell are JUNK. Fast forward a couple more days, then ripping everything back apart again, screwing up my new paint job, waiting another week for new rubber to be sent to me from another vendor, then repeat the whole process over again.
My advice. Save yourself a HUGE headache and buy the proper seals to begin with....and even at that they are a major, MAJOR job to install perfectly.
