Topic: Door Felt / Outside seal

[Angela]

I'm having a heck of a time with the outter rubber seal and am looking for creative solutions. One by one, I snapped in each of the clips integrated into the outside door glass seal, into the slots in my door. Each clip "felt" like it was snapping into the slot in the door properly and I could hear the "click" as each clip slipped in. However, only after I'd snapped ALL of the clips into the slots in the door did I realize they aren't actually holding. See the pic below; the clips hold enough such that I cannot remove the seal without destroying it, yet you can flop the seal around in the door with your fingers. It appears the slots in the door are wider than the clip.   
Note I used the very expensive "Dave's manufacturing" seals as was recommended by many other people. 

What can I do? Destroy the seal to remove it and search for NOS? I hate to go that route yet don't know what else I can do.

[Angela]

Well, I ruined the seal now..... I thought I had an idea to use a pair of needle-nose vise grips to slightly compress the clips, thereby making them slightly "taller". I think that would have worked, but the second clip I attempted to modify broke.

So, now what? Buy another set of Dale's and do what? Or, try to locate an NOS set?

[ruppstang]

A new set may be the only thing you can do. If it is only one clip you might get by. Is very important to flatten the slot area that the clip engages. Often when the seals are removed it bends the metal and the new clip will not catch.

[Angela]

Banging head here. Dang, I don't understand how these clips work, but I do agree the slots in my door are not perfectly flat. I see absolutely no way to flatten them no, since  the paint work is of course complete. I'd have to yank the glass from the door (again) and risk (high risk) cracking paint. Advise?

Has anyone else run into this issue and if so, how did you solve the problem? Glue?

[Angela]

These seals are really bugging me, because I don't understand how the clips work, therefore I truly don't know if I yet agree they *must* have a perfectly flat surface to work properly.

It just occurred to me that it's possible I installed the outer rubber seals (not the fuzzies) on the wrong door.....meaning maybe I have them upside down? Looking at the image below (which is of the fuzzies, not the external rubber seal, yet the concept is the same), which side of the clip should face UP?  Maybe it doesn't matter at all but since I'm in debug mode I thought I'd try and rule out this possibility.

[Angela]

For anyone interested, attached is a pdf summary of pictures and experiments I've been gathering in an effort to figure out how to get these blasted door seals to hold. I'm stumped....stuck....really out of ideas and still cannot figure out a solution. If anyone has an idea, please let me know.

In short, I think I've learned three things:

(1) When the clips hold, the "tang" on the clip is always curved and catches the face of the lower edge of the slot. See slide 6.
(2) There does appear to be a lack of heat treatment with the repro clips vs the original clips. I spoke with someone at Dale's manufacturing and they informed me that were aware that some of the clips they'd received hadn't received the heat treating process thus they we're exhibiting the spring-steel behavior required to latch properly.
(3) The lower surface of the slots in my doors are so boogered up from removal of the previous clips that the slots are too wide to work properly. See slide 8. I don't know how to resolve this problem.