door seal restore

[nattyphysicist]

Hello all,

The door seals on my Festiva are well past their prime. They constantly leak when I'm driving over 80 km/h. A friend suggested that I rub them down with vasaline to soften them up. Another person said to use silicone spray. I'm wondering if anyone here has other suggestions or opinions?

Thanks,
Nat

[Pu241]

A lot depends on the polymer used to make the seals.
Both Vaseline and silicone can help recondition the seals if the polymer is accepting of them.
But initially they can get messy and smug you glass up if you not careful and they may only be very temporary.
Treating the surface not the bulk of the polymer.
Does anyone actually know what these seals are made made of?
To reduce the number of false starts, "rubber" is not a sufficient answer to help solve this problem.

[shawnw]

I've had good luck with plain old armour all. When I first got my festiva the seals were all really dry and louder than normal on the highway. A litte bit of armour all rubbed onto them every couple of weeks made a big difference.

[nattyphysicist]

Every couple of weeks? What happens when you stop doing that?

[shawnw]

I just did it every couple of weeks until the rubber stopped absorbing the armour all and stayed nice and dark. After that I've barely had to touch them.

[25Horseplay]

Festiva Motorsport has new weather stripping.

[GenevaDirt]

you can also roll the window down and tweek the frame in a little. It helped a great deal on my 91

[ejp2fast]

you can also roll the window down and tweek the frame in a little. It helped a great deal on my 91

define "tweek"..??? like 4-pound-hammer tweek?

[nattyphysicist]

you can also roll the window down and tweek the frame in a little. It helped a great deal on my 91

I've seen that suggestion before and I'm hesitant. I don't want to bring the door out of shape, although I know that the window frame does oscillate pivoting where it meets the bulk of the door because I have paint cracks there.

I have also seen those seals on festiva motorsport. They are $75 each! Maybe that is realistic, but my initial reaction is can't I buy this stuff by the length?

I am going to try the armour all first and see what happens. Thanks to all!

[GenevaDirt]

define "tweek"..??? like 4-pound-hammer tweek?

like put your knee on the inside of the door and pull the top of the frame toward you a bit and give it a try. You will not really be able to see a differance but you will hear the differance when driving.

[Mike McKown]

I've pulled my doors in at the top. Didn't help any. I leave the heater control on outside air. When you increase speed to a certain point, you can watch the tops of the doors move in/out, breaking the seal gap to the rubber and causing wind noise.

You could probably fix or help your problem if you kept the heater control (center lever) on "re-circulate" instead of "outside air". This will relieve the air pressure that is blowing the tops of the window frames outboard.

I didn't really reef the door frames in that far, because that can cause other problems if you overdo it.