Loud roof rail seals and door seals on 1971 Fleetwood

[Brett Moore]

Hey folks,

I have a 1971 Fleetwood that has been undergoing major work for some time.  I was on the road today and the ride was very loud from wind noise. All the weatherstripping was replaced with Steele products a while back.  Is this common to aftermarket rubber?  Are there any fixes or adjustments?  It is borderline intolerable at the moment.

Thanks in advance,

Brett

[The Tassie Devil(le)]

I know what you mean.   The new rubbers on my '72 don't fit correctly, especially where the front rubber meets the back rubber.

Bruce.

[Scot Minesinger]

There are adjustments you can make to the glass, but the alignment was set at the factory and probably correct.  Visually see if the alignment looks right and see if you think it should be adjusted, likely no.

What probably happened is that the new rubber was not installed properly with respect to that it is compressed slightly by the frameless glass when the window is closed and door is shut to make a proper seal.  I would take the car back to the shop that installed it.  If you installed it yourself, well it probably needs to be redone.

Although I can remove an engine, change out front suspension parts, fabricate difficult metal brackets and assemblies, and the like, I'm no good at installing these rubber seals, even on a trunk! 

I have a 1970 SDV with no B pillar, and so these seals are even more difficult because your Fleetwood has a post separating the two doors on each side of the car.  I had a body shop perform the work and car is leak tight and no wind noise.

Best of luck,

Scot

[DeVille68]

Exactly,

currently I am adjusting my windows to achieve a "perfect" seal of window to rubber and window to window (front to back).

I can't get the window up enough to meet with the roof rail weatherstrip deep enough - but don't worry. Even the Fisher body manual explains that one should adjust the convertible top (which I won't do!) or bring the weatherstrip down.

--> So this is what I do: add some neoprene rubber between weatherstrip and roof rail to bring the weatherstrip down closer to the window.

I have also replaced all my weatherstrips with those from Steele - otherwise, no problem at all.

[55 cadi]

Try this..........

Call Steele rubber,  they are great and there techs ( forget the guys name) know there stuff, they may send you something to fix or just have great customer service and give you new door seals or maybe sections to replace where bad, they sell a lot of them by the foot.

Just cut and put in new sections, I think would be better than adding glue or rubber.

Jason