Door Seal Preventing Door Closure

[Tomnistuff]

Hi all,

Last night I sent the following PM to one of our members who has mentioned a problem similar or identical to one that I am experiencing.  Today, I added a couple of details.  His problem was "binding" at the lower front corner preventing closure after installing a new door seal.

"I was searching for a specific problem with replacing door seals and I found your post mentioning binding at the front lower corner when trying to close the door with a newly fitted seal.

I've just encountered that problem, but mine is so bad that at the other end of the door, the door handle and latch end, the door will not close at all.  The door starts to bind when still about 10 or 15 degrees open.  When I continue trying to close it, it won't come within 1/2 inch of closing flush at the rear no matter how hard I try.  Before installing the seal, the flushness appeared fine, meaning the hinges appear correct.  With the new seal, the door is so far from closing, the door rear vertical part of the seal doesn't even contact the B-pillar seal surface.  The entire length of the seal on the bottom of the door contacts the body chrome trim just below the ribbed sill rubber but the door seal feels too stiff to compress."

This morning, I've been pushing and shoving the door to exercise the seal and have been able to squeeze the seal and make it flexible enough to reduce the rear "stand-off" distance from 1/2 inch to 1/4 inch, but It has taken a lot of work.  See the photo.  Does anyone who has experienced this "new door seal stiffness" problem have a solution?  Is it even possible to make the URO seal flexible enough to get a total 1/2 inch of compression out of a new URO door seal?

I've read posts that mention the stiffness and the fact that the door is "hard" to close, but I've never encountered a post that complains that the door is not possible to close at all because of the seal.

I'm so frustrated that I'm now fighting the temptation to try to find a "non M-B solution" that would use a more flexible type of seal, i.e., a foam seal or a hollow "bulb-type" seal.  I already fought and won the fight with seal length by cutting and re-gluing the seal to get the drain holes to line up.  I thought it would be easy after that, but I was wrong.

Any ideas or past experience - with details?

Tom Kizer

[Jordan]

Tom, maybe you could post some pictures of the door seal with the door open.  Is it an MB door seal?  Did it fit when you installed it (i.e. no excess or bulging anywhere)?   Not sure why you would be having this problem.  Replaced my door seals a few years ago and no binding or problems closing the doors.  Gentle push and a solid thunk.

[hkollan]

Tom,

My first thought was, as Jordan also mentions, where did you source the door seals.
I had exact same issue on a friends 230 SL where we recently installed new doorseals.

The doorseals had been bought in the US probably 8-10 years ago so not very fresh.
I believe the brand was URO. They look very good with reinforcements in the right places just as the originals. But the rubber did not compress well, so the doors were very hard to close.
If your seals are not originals, or not recently bought from MB, i would get a fresh
original set.  There were a period when MB had some issues with the rubber quality
on seals etc, which I believed they've resolved since.

Hans

[Benz Dr.]

URO

You
Replace
Often

[mrfatboy]

I just had to returned a URO rear soft top seal.  The way it was formed at the factory made it impossible to work with.  After a couple of days with heat gun and trying to force into correct shape I gave up and ordered OEM.

The URO front seal and window seals worked fine for me though.

[Tomnistuff]

As implied by my question in the original post about how much a URO seal can be compressed, the seal I purchased is a URO seal.  I bought it based on quite a few posts that said the door seals by URO  worked relatively well, but that some of their other seals less than satisfactory in some other locations.  Until the door closing problem arose, the only problem I had with the URO door seal was the fact that the lower length was about two inches too long, with that two-inch excess occurring between the lower rear corner of the door and the first drain hole.  That caused all of the drain hole notches in the seal to be two inches out of alignment and forward of where they are supposed to be.  All the drain hole notches were correctly spaced relative to one another, but all were shifted too far from the rear corner.  I carefully marked up the seal, cut out two inches of length and butt-glued the ends back together while gluing the lower length to the door and aligning the seal notches with the drain holes.  Neither stretch nor compression was required for it to fit.

Before seal installation, I used 3M General Purpose Adhesives and Wax Remover (03618C) to clean the door seal surface and also to clean any mold release agent or finger oils from the EPDM seal.

I followed the seal installation procedures (both are almost identical) by Markbhai and the one provided to me privately by Alfred Esser.  I find no fault in either of the procedures recommended to me.  Both are precise and extremely easy to understand.  The only mistake I think I might have made is in underestimating Alfred's warning to me.  He said, "Make sure you really squeeze the seal into the door jamb lip to get a tight fit.  It will take perhaps 6 months until the door closes "normal", until then, you really need to slam it: these EPDM seals take a long time to shape themselves.  Let me know if something is not clear."

Alfred, you should have repeated that warning about 10 times, because it didn't penetrate my thick skull.  I tried my best, but perhaps it wasn't good enough.


I used 3M black weatherstrip adhesive 80019, (recommended by 3M for EPDM seals)

Until it had dried, I had no inkling that there would be any problem with the fit.  Everything to me looked like it would all be perfect.

The above comments represent my current knowledge of the problem.  Next, I will return to the car and examine every inch of the seal once again while trying to understand if there is something not assembled correctly and where the "resistance" to closure is coming from.  It is possible that the problem is an incompatibility between reality (EPDM is stiff and takes a long time to break-in.) and my expectations (no original-equipment-manufacturer engineer or reputable aftermarket parts supplier would design a seal system that takes months or even weeks to start working.)

Based on the last sentence in the previous paragraph, I suspect at this point that I may have done something really stupid resulting in my trying to close the door on a section of the seal that is in a place where no seal is supposed to be.  It's really hard to clearly see the seal area between the door and the A-pillar with the hinges and the door detent mechanism obscuring the view.

I will investigate, take pictures and report back.

Thanks much for the interest and comments to date.

Tom Kizer

[Tomnistuff]

I’m back.  First I’ll describe the photos below in three posts of 4 photos / 4 photos and 2 photos.  The most interesting will probably be the second batch in the next post, although in my opinion, nothing is terribly revealing as far as the problem is concerned.

Photo 1 – The upper rear end of the door seal is glued in place for two reasons.  The screw hole in the rear upper window guide rail is at an angle that causes the upper seal to distort when both the seal retention screw and the Chrome Plate that surrounds the door latch are installed.   Both the retention screw and the Chrome Plate retain the upper end of the seal.  On my car, either will work alone.  Both are not required and, in fact, when used together cause the seal to be distorted.  I choose to keep the Chrome Plate instead of the seal screw for cosmetic reasons.

Photo 2 – The seal rear vertical length in its entirety fits extremely well with no compression or stretching required between the upper end and the door lower corner.

Photo 3 – The rear third of the lower seal length contains the butt joint where I shortened the URO seal to accommodate the door drain hole spacing because the seal was two inches too long between the rear drain hole and the second to rear drain hole in the door.  I need to reglue a slight separation in the butt joint after two days of trying to force the seal to compress.  My sloppy glue application needs to be cleaned up.

Photo 4 – The center third of the lower door seal length appears normal except that it seems to contribute to the force keeping the door from closing.  More sloppy glue application cleaning to do.

The next post will address the next 4 photos.

Tom Kizer

[Tomnistuff]

This is the second batch of 4 door seal photos of the new seal.

Photo 5 – The front third of the lower door seal length (less the corner itself) also appears OK like the center third but it too resists compression during closing.  More sloppy glue to clean up.

Photo 6 – The lower front corner of the new seal looks as expected except for the small area where the glued-on seal is separated slightly from the small bracket that shapes the seal to the contour of the door sill seal surface.  After taking this series of photos, I reglued the seal and the door closing function remained the same, with severe resistance to closing.

Photo 7 – The seal corner including the length from the end of the seal lower length to the upper part of the door hinge appears as other photos show that it was designed to appear.  Although that corner section of the seal does appear “FATTER” than the other straight sections of the seal.  I also question whether the multiple bends in that complex corner might make the seal stiffer than the straight sections.

Photo 8 – Although this is where I suspected there to be a problem, the seal in this A-pillar section seems to fit the two seal rails correctly and the seal length from the upper end to the lower corner was perfect.

The last two photos follow in the next post.

Tom Kizer

[Tomnistuff]

Here are the last two photos.

Photo 9 – The lower front corner as seen from below the open door during closing appears to exhibit correct closing seal deflection geometry.  As the door approaches a closed position, the thinner section of rubber ( not the part that curves upward, but the part that extends almost straight from the main thicker part of the bottom seal) rides over the end of a small sheet metal wall, closing off a potential air leak from the outside.  Although I did not really know what to expect, I see nothing that appears abnormal during door closing.  To me it appears that there is just “too much seal” in “too little gap”.

Photo 10 – The fit of the upper front end of the seal appears to me to be completely normal.  It there is something abnormal in this photo, it is too subtle for me.

Question:  Can someone who is intimately familiar with the Mercedes-Benz door seal and the URO door seal, for my benefit and the benefit of others, please describe any differences in appearance and/or function between the two seals?

Any help at all will be greatly appreciated.  I continue to exercise the URO seal, but I cannot get the rear flushness to within ¼ inch of flush.  As the door closes, it feels in the last ½ inch of stand-off as if the seal is compressing and as the closure approaches ¼ inch stand-off, it is as if the rubber becomes really, really hard and stops compressing.

Tom Kizer

[66andBlue]

Tom,
I'll try to shoot some photos of my door seals later for comparison and point out some differences between yours and mine.
Meanwhile, do you have any photos showing the closed door before you installed the seal? Was the door really flush with the chassis, front and back, and not "recessed"?

[Tomnistuff]

Hi Alfred,
No, I don't have any "before seals" photos of the door flushness.  I'm trying to back-track your thought process.  Are you thinking that maybe my door hinges are set too far inboard?

Anyway, I'll try to send a few photos showing as close as I can get to current door gaps and flushness with the seals in place preventing closing of the door.  I was thinking that if the door is hung too far forward, then the seal "gap" at the front would be too small.  But then, the upper side trim would crash with the fender at the front gap.  My paranoia prevents me from rehanging the door to provide more seal gap.  I know that if I try to move the door "out" away from the body, I'll cause a problem with the upper side trim piece colliding with the fender as the door is opened, so that feeds my paranoia as well.  To really rehang the door, I would logically have to remove the seals completely to provide for total mobility of the door.  All of that would be way over my head.

At this point, I'm considering trying to install the striker and the latch in their most open positions and trying to close the door to stress and reset the door rubber.

Actually, the more I think about it, I'm probably already over my head.  I'm just barely smart enough not to destroy anything, I think.

Tom K.

[Tomnistuff]

During the last few minutes, I blocked closed "carefully with padding" the passenger door rear door seal area near the striker and used a ratcheting tie-down strap to tie the two door frames together and pulled the driver's door closed, but with only a few pounds force to compress the seal, but not too much.

I then took some photos of the gaps and flushness front and rear to give you an idea about the door fit.  I'll send the photos tomorrow.

I'm really thinking that the seal is just too damned fat.  I'm looking forward to your seal photos.  I wish I had saved my removed seals.  In fact, I thought I did, but I can't find them.

My '69 Ferrari door seals were soft bulb type seals (with tiny holes) molded to a rubber coated continuous U-shaped push-on weld-seam clip.  No glue, no stress and a non-critical design. 

Tom Kizer

[66andBlue]

Tom,
here are my photos - URO weatherstrip - installed while the car was in Blacklick at the last PUB.
It appears that there is little difference - if any between yours and mine along the back of the door - from the window whiskers down to the corner - and along the bottom of the door.
Unfortunately I cannot open my door wide enough to shoot a photo like your #6 but perhaps your strip is twisted differently from mine and may be sticking too far inward (toward the cabin). See my photos #4 and #5. In my photo # 6 I indicate where the strip meets the chassis on top.
If you follow your strip from that location down to the corner is that the area where it is too "fat"?

[66andBlue]

Photos #5 and #6

[Tomnistuff]

I think I see something wrong with my seal installation in my photo 8 that could be a part of the problem and a misunderstanding on my part of how the lower corner of the seal fits against the small sheet metal "wall" in photo 9.  Both locations may cause a situation wherein there is a part of the seal being "pinched" as the door tries to finish its closing.

I will explore more thoroughly and report back.

Thanks for the photos Alfred.  I think two of them may have given me the clue to solving my mystery, particularly the significance if the felt covering near the check "strap" and the funny shape of the seal cross-section in the lower front corner.

After coffee, I'll go investigate.

Tom Kizer

[Tomnistuff]

Well, apparently I've been wasting my time trying to get it right the first time.  I can find nothing wrong with the way the seal is installed nor the way it functions, except that it's got a low compressibility.  I unscrewed the front rails retaining the seal and verified that the seal is properly installed and that it is contacting the A pillar in the only places it can, given the design of the chrome rails and the 50 year-old screw holes in the door front panel.  I also deflected the small thin section of seal rubber at the corner in photo 9 that I thought was supposed to ride over the thin wall of sheet metal near the end of the sill chrome rail.  Instead I made it tuck into the small gap between the sheet metal wall and the sill chrome rail.  It made no difference to the door minimum closing gap at the rear.  The door is still 1/4 inch from being flush near the door handle.  The seal is just either fat or stiff or both or I'm missing something.

So in the end, I installed the door latch and striker plate in it's maximum outboard position, using the greased pin and taped striker plate hole method.  The door closed cleanly the first time and every time thereafter, still with the 1/4 inch stand-off from flush position.  apparently there was enough striker adjustment to do that.  I made a movie but it takes too much memory and I don't have the software or the patience left to edit it smaller or shorter.

At this point, if I want to drive the car this year, I have to complete the assembly of the driver's door, assemble and adjust the passenger's door and window and finish the engine prep for first fire.

Although it's not like I wish it was, apparently (I hope) the seal will eventually break in and I can then adjust the door to fit correctly. 

I want to sincerely thank all of you who have followed this thread tried to help me.  Apparently I don't have enough experience (read that "any experience") to properly install the seals and get the door to close correctly the first time.  Hopefully, it will eventually work out.

For now, I'll finish the car and get it on the road.  At least the doors are not flopping in the breeze.

Tom Kizer

[Tyler S]

Here are some side by side photos of a MB seal (top in photos) and a URO seal. They both vary in thickness between each other but the main difference is the URO seal does not have cloth around the lower front pinch points. In this area the seal needs to slide over the metal door frame as the door is closing. If the rubber is sticking to the frame then it may be trying to roll over on itself.

[Benz Dr.]

Try some talcum powder on the seal. This will allow it to slide if it's grabbing or binding.

[66andBlue]

Another good product that I like because it is water-based (solvent-free) is this one - available from AutoGeek: