Topic: Front fender seal to innner fender

[orlandod]

Just pulled off my front fender to work on the hinges and notice a very dry and crusty gasket/seal/weather strip between the panel and the inner engine bay panel. What is this? does NPD sell a replacement? It looks like it does not go the entire length??? Not sure yet what is on the passenger side. Thanks

[DougDyar]

Originally Ford placed strip caulking along that seam.

[J_Speegle]

Typical of San Jose cars. Appears that it was originally applied to the fender lip  before the fender was installed. You want to find a very dark gray to black strip sealant NOT the light gray stuff Ford later sold for this and other purposes. There are a number of discussions on strip chalking where different products plus issues with some of them are discussed. No reason for going over that again here. Body auto body paint shops or suppliers sell the stuff.. Once you get some you will find other original uses for it also so handy stuff to have around in a restoration

Originally it was a fairly thin flat strip maybe about a 1/2" wide before being crushed between the fender and apron. If you use the current thin round strip chalking you will need to form it into a solid single ribbon. Looks really bad to look and see five or more small individual strands rather than the original form

[orlandod]

Thanks for the reply. I was considering the round gray stuff but will now look for the more prototypical flat black sealer