The Coupe is awesome, lets get that out of the way first, much, much cooler than a Roadie anyday. Right, now thats settled an sorted lets get on with this Coupe only diy.
Living in Dubai, my car is subject to some pretty intense outside air temperatures. 50 degrees plus on a common basis for a few months a year.
My Coupe has withstood this heat pretty well, except for the weatherstrip on the rear quater windows.
Ive got a good buddy over in AbuDhabi, same car, same issue.. and its not the whole quarter window rubber, just the bottom bit that stops the rain going down the panel. The weather strip for example on the actual door window is perfect.. so it must be the rubber compound they used to make that particular quarter window rubber…
mine weren't too bad actually, afar seeing my mates car, his were def a little worse than mine, but was always very careful while washing the car around those rubbers, you only have to touch them and they smear very badly, you could rest your fingertip on there and it would have an imprint of your finger in there.. thats how soft/ deg-ridated they are…
The only proper solution is to buy new rubbers for the window, only one small catch… you can't buy them loose and you have to buy the glass with it.. Realoem says around 250US a side… Bloody hell!!!
so today i washed my car and while i was removing some of the water with my Shammy, i lightly touched the weather strip on the left hand quarter window, and about 1cmx.5cm broke off… Fark!!! looks totally shit now!…
So thought, well stuff it, can't make it any worse, (had been formulating a solution to this issue for about a year now, but now my hand was forced)
grabbed my trusty Stanley knife (you guys in the states know this as box cutters <see many a scary us movie) and with my ever so steady hands (cough) started cutting.. worst case scenario i have to buy 2 new windows and rubbers…
I cut about 4 mills out from the window in a parallel line towards the door and all the way back to where the rubber goes into a big square type and runs up the window.
took my time, the panel starts at about 6-7mills out from the window, so be careful where you cut.
I then carefully filled the gap with black silicon (in a gun) and slowly worked it in from front to back (the gap is only about 2 mills from the panel and the standard tip works great.
Yep, notice i did stuff up a little with too much coming out of the gun in one spot. but no fear, easily fixable…
carefully worked my finger (gotta be wet with very soapy water) along the gap and got a nice seal. looks ok too.
just have to take your time and wipe any access silicon away with a rag/tissue/ dipped in some mentholated spirits.. (denatured alcohol i think you guys call it)
Its not perfect, but its a 100 percent improvement to what it looked like before.. and i can always sometime down the line buy the new windows with rubbers…
finished product..
and
and
any feedback is appreciated.
Cheerio.
V.