Thread: Dust sealing on a D2... good or bad?

Originally Posted by plaven

I'd need a fairly thick piece of rubber glued along the door to make a seal otherwise.

Instead, I would glue the rubber strip behind the seal on the body to push it back out against the top of the door again. If you put the rubber onto the door you will create a ledge that the dust and water will sit on and probably come in when you open the door.

The tailgate hinges, especially the lower one are known to bend. They should both be straight and once bent, no amount of adjusting will help.



Our car never took dust in through the back door and we were always on corrugated roads.




Erich

My brothers lower hinge was bent, which lowered the door. He was able to take the hinge off and straighten it in a press.very good dust sealing now.

IME anything from d2 p38 onwards is pretty good. Our last high country trip we had no dust at all in the p38 - was very suprised!

Originally Posted by Slunnie

Instead, I would glue the rubber strip behind the seal on the body to push it back out against the top of the door again. If you put the rubber onto the door you will create a ledge that the dust and water will sit on and probably come in when you open the door.

I've never looked at mine in that much detail. All I know is it's dropped a little and need adjusting.

Funny you mention the dust sitting on top of the seal. I do remember when I did a run down the Buchanan Highway last dry season, when I opened the rear door, a massive lot of dust fell down all over the inside of the back door and inside. That was really fine powder though.

Happy Days

OK, I've tried a few things with this gap, such as stuffing in a smaller bit of rubber to push the seal out to touch the door, but it's not working.

I'd estimate the gap at its worst is something like 3-4 mm.

It's almost like the top part of the door has been bent, not that the hinges have sagged. I'm thinking of taking it to a smash repairer to see if it's possible to gently bend the top half of the door inwards to bring it back to sealing. Anyone ever done anything like that?

Here's a few shots of the gap between the seal the end top part of the door, you can see it's fairly substantial and there's no chance of any sealing at all.

Can you show us a picture of what it's like down closer to the latch?

Originally Posted by joel0407

Can you show us a picture of what it's like down closer to the latch?

Down at latch it's tight.

If you think of the way the door has a natural bend inwards at about the half way mark (around where the window starts) it loses contact with the seal from about there until the other side of the door.

I'll grab a photo though.

So just a follow up...

I had another look at the back door and pulled the cover off and saw the two bolts in there. I loosened them off but couldn't seem to get any change to the door alignment.

Looking at the hinges on the body though I could see where the hinge mounted to the body appeared to have slipped down in that I could see a dirt/dust build up where it once sat.

So I loosed off these bolts and using the bottle jack lifted the door up, the hinge mounts moved up and I tightened off the bolts.

I door now seals, with none of the gaps seen in the photo. The real test is going to be when it rains next or I drive along a dusty road.

I'm hoping this works.