The 'E' Type Forum

Hello all. Every rubber and seal on my FHC are perished has anyone got any advise on changing before I start ? What glue to use or anything that might cause me ag ?
Many thanks

Chris

Chris,

First I would source all your new rubber seals from COH Baines as they are much softer than some of the suppliers. I used Alphabond AF178 which is a brush on contact adhesive although I think it only comes in 1 litre tins which might be far too much for your needs.

I can't remember where I saw it by I think CMC did a write up of the process to fit new door seals. You'll need to clean the channels with white spirit to remove the previous contact adhesive. They recommended applying a thin layer to the rubber and channel and allow to dry until it gets tacky. Then apply a second layer to both and fit the seal when the 2nd layer is slightly tacky.

Start with the A-post seal and tape it in situ. It will almost certainly need some rubber trimmed from the large section at the top of the A-post/bottom of the windscreen and possibly along the back of the seal. As this seal is so close to the hinge it is more easily compressed so you're aiming for the seal to have little or no change in the effort to close the door. Then bond in place before moving on to the next seal.

Repeat for the B-post and then finally the sill rubber. Again you want to avoid allowing a build up in effort to close the door as it builds up more noticeably with the last two seals. The door has to close slightly beyond its closed position to engage the latch. If there too much resistance from the seals the doors might need slamming just to shut.

Chris

Hello Chris and Chris,

First to Mr Vine, after searching for "glue" I was reading your door-rubber and trim accounts, Chris, and stumbled across your floor-pan horrors after you had "trusted" your car to a "professionnal" .............. made me feel sick reading this - how did it pan out ?

I'm changing the windscreen on my OTS and have the inevitable "elastic perimeter syndrome" where the job has extended to doors-off and change all the seals at the same time, hence the search for "glue" and finding this trim posting.



The PO fitted all the seals (26 years ago) with Evostick from what I can judge, and it has gone horribly brown-yellow as you can see here - not the best look for a Cream shell, and there are many other rubbers on the car where the seals are accompanied by glimpses of the Evostick around their perimeter.



I have never managed to use contact adhesives to my satisfaction in this kind of application, since the one-shot grab seems completely inappropriate in a context where adjustment and easing are necessary, and there always seems to be glue visible where you didn't expect it.

Has anyone tried anything else with any success ? I can't believe there aren't alternatives.

Unwittingly, my only experience has been trying a radically different product - Loctite 5910 Quick Gasket, believe it or not. It's not seen being hyped-up much in the press, probably because it's aimed at OEM and professionnal engine-builders, and I only discovered it when talking with a chemical engineer from Loctite on the telephone about - it gets worse - a swimming-pool issue. He maintained this product had a lot more of something (expensive) in it that made it more aggressive and invasive within a plastic or rubber context, and whilst we were talking about a sealing application it has in fact turned out to be a very good glue too.



So far I've only used it on the B-post seals, that was about a year ago, but it has worked a treat ; it isn't a contact adhesive, I just used bits of masking tape to hold everything in place - without any feeling that I HAD to get compression on the seal like I would have done with conact adhesives, then left it overnight to cure. It goes on like any RTV does, the lightly-pressurised version of the 5910 product we find from trade-suppliers in France has this built-in applicator nozzle that seems very suitable and "dosable" (is that French ?) for seal application, and it bites into the rubber to the extent that once it's gone off it feels like you would probably destroy the seal getting it off. The grip on de-greased paint appears to have been excellent.

http://www.loctite.co.uk/loctite-4087.h ... 2627387393

Paradoxically, it's BLACK big-time. However, despite the fact that it's the worst gasket-cement product I have EVER come across to remove from your fingers, and horribly prone to being transmitted from tool-to-cloth-to-bench-to-door-handle, it's potentially very visually discreet to use - because, within reason, any excess looks like it's part of the black seal itself, and it doesn't require much of it to do the job.

Is this a substitute for Contact Adhesive ? Have I answered my own question - again ?!

Rory,

I'd been away for 6 months and so have only just got two quotes for the repairs to the footwells (one three times the other ). The garage are being a bit slippery in admitting liability but I have photos of the car in their workshop when it was up on their 2-post lift. So it will be off to the insurers to sort out. Hopefully it will be repaired in the next few months.

I agree with your point about contact adhesive grabbing the rubbers as you try to push them into the channels. I think someone else on here was considering using an alternative. I had to have several goes at one of the A-post seals because I didn't get it quite right first time. I did try to lift and reapply the seal but this just lifted the adhesive in the channel. So I had to clean it all off with white spirit and start again.

Chris

I hope you get that sorted, and how frustrating ...............

The 5910 does indeed stick extraordinarily well, whilst doing that B-post I had refixed a recalcitrant sill-seal with some and yesterday I removed it - the contact adhesive zone fell apart, wheras the the Loctited part held on to whole strip of the seal and was much more difficult to clean up.



Visible lower right.

I found a bit of 1" x 1/4"" mahogany, with various shapes shaved off the corners with a chisel, to be the gentlest way to get the old glue off - softened with cellulose thinners applied sparingly with a paint brush, and plenty of masking tape ; my paint is not lacquered but what we call here "brillant direct", so it is very tolerant of the occasional stain because it can be polished back with a sequence of 320/1000/3000 grits and a buffing compound.



I'm doing the bonnet seal and both the door seals this week and will stick (!) with the 5910, resolving however to use just a 2mm bead down the centre of the channel and hope to get zero side egress.

Once the channels were glue-free, i rubbed them down with 320 and then painted them with some 2-pack applied with a brush, followed up about 5 minutes later with a spray finish from cans I get mixed up to the same shade as the 2-pack - in that way you can chase the paint with the brush into every nook and cranny in a way you cannot with a spray, and then the finish with the spray to disguise the brush marks. It wouldn't work on a wing or a bonnet but it's remarkably effective - and do we really have any choice ? - when tarting up more technical areas.





A tiny quantity goes a very long way ! The masking tape has to be laid exactly along the apex of the corner, so that the eye confuses any subsequent imperfections in finish or shade with the change in the angle of the light.



and the result - this is prior to pulling the masking tape - is pretty good.



I wait 5 minutes after spraying, no more, to remove all the masking tape, so that the wet edge can collapse and flatten, and thus present less of a lip. After a couple of days I'll use the 320/1000/3000 grits and buffing sequence to (try and) remove any trace of the touching-up.

Just had interesting exchange with a Loctite technical lady in Paris.

There are essentially three catégories of RTV (room temperature vulcanising) sealants and adhesives - alcohol based, acetic acid based, and "oxime" based which is a new one one me - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxime

The 5910 is of the latter oxime family and explains why its grip on the rubber seals is quite different to other "gasket cements" from the other groups.

It's available in 40ml tubes, the 200ml pressurised dispenser that I use (see earlier picture), and as a standard 300ml cartridge for use with a manual gun.

However it is only available in black ; it's adherance to steel is 1.70 N/mm², don't know how that compares with contact adhesives but it's irrelevant since the door-seal material gives up before the 5910 in my experience.

However, she did suggest two other products that might be more appropriate, or worth trying.

One is similar to 5910, but called 5375 - it's clear in colour, which is a plus, slightly lower 1.30 N/mm², probably irrelevant for us, but the downside is it takes 4 days to cure. Only available in 300ml cartridges, which is a pity - the pressurised 200ml 5910 dispenser is really good.

The other is a cyanoacrylate (super-glue type) called 480 that includes an elastomer to render it a) more elastic and b) SLOWER, she mentioned minutes rather than seconds - now that might be interesting, even if it is black. The amount required would be very low, perhaps making for less unwanted side-squeezes, though it would have no gap-filling capacity unlike the 5910. Supplied only as a 20ml tube. This might be brilliant for joining seals together, not on the E-type, but useful on other projects.

For the current jobs I am going to stay with the 5910 but the 5375 and 480 are worth investigating.

Worth also looking here...Andrew was trying something different http://www.myetype.co.uk/forum/viewtopi ... 495#p69495

I can confirm that the clear Loctite 5375 has proved excellent for door rubber-seal fixing, if 11-months proving is adequate for judging purposes.

I hate using contact adhesive for these jobs and regularly screwed up all sorts of fitting when the "grab" got the better of me.



When re-doing the seals last year I used all three products, the 5910, the 5375, and the 480, so as to form an opinion. All three are available from RS-Components at (apparently) competitive prices.

The 5910 (the black oxyme) is fantastically strong, but unnecessarily so and removal of any seal so glued requires destroying it. It remains my favourite product for filling gaps in seals (windscreen detailing ?) and holding recalcitrant chrome trim like the lower windscreen chrome beading, as well as being an outstanding gasket cement.

The 480 (slower, superglue-type, black) was difficult to use and the results were unsatisfactory.

The 5375 was the best ; it can cope with irregularities in the seal-to-body interface, goes off slowly so you've got time to get the "attitude" you want, is strong enough to keep the seals firmly in place but can be separated without destroying them (I could easily have re-used the sill-seals I removed) - and because it is clear it looks neater in most contexts, in that any excess remains discreet, certainly on a white car anyway.

I'm re-doing all 6 door-seals again, in the context of a re-trim, and will once more use the 5375.

[quote="rfs1957"]
"........my paint is not lacquered but what we call here "brillant direct", so it is very tolerant of the occasional stain because it can be polished back with a sequence of 320/1000/3000 grits and a buffing compound..."

Blimey you're brave - I wouldn't start with anything coarser than 800 grit.



"...Once the channels were glue-free, i rubbed them down with 320 and then painted them with some 2-pack applied with a brush, followed up about 5 minutes later with a spray finish from cans I get mixed up to the same shade as the 2-pack - ..."

You can get 2 pack aerosols mixed. At any rate you can in England. They can either put an additive to make it 1k, or use one of those pre-filled cans with hardener that you pull the ring or push the button on the bottom to activate. That's what I'm using on my engine frames - easier to get in there than with a spray gun.

I bought some Loctite 5910 on eBay and it had no instructions in english on it. Not as obvious as you might think.

One bit of soft-top seal fell on me and I got the bl**dy stuff everywhere, cream seats, tan mohair top, shirt. Came off with Swarfega reasonably well before it set.

For anybody else, turning the nozzle "d'¼ detour dans le sens inverse des aiguilles d'une montre"

- is short for "¼ turn CCW"


Steve

I don't use contact adhesive for seals. It is so hard to work with. I only use it for sticking trim to panels.
I use cyanoacylate for things like A post seals, one dot at a time maybe spaced 2" apart. For stuff like the boot door seal I like "goop". Smear a thick bead of it on, position the seal then close the boot door and leave it for a day or two.

Not sure if you can get Goop in the UK? I use it for all sorts of things in the US. If you need to stick a bolt to a strip of metal to reach an inaccessible hole, or anything like that, Goop's the stuff! It's thick enough to hold things together but you can pull it apart while it's still soft.

For the record, Loctite 5910 comes off fairly easily from PVC and powder coated steel with meths, after it has set.

Steve