E350 Door Seals - where to purchase?

[sakurama]

Originally Posted by JWA

I'll reiterate effective rear and side door sealing is very dependent upon how the door fits against the body.

Well, I ordered seals from LCM but now I suppose this is the place to ask; how do you adjust the fit of the doors... properly. My side door seems loose at the top so I guess the first thing is new seals as adjusting the catch plate hasn’t helped. Is there a tutorial somewhere?

Thanks,

Gregor

[JWA]

Originally Posted by sakurama

Well, I ordered seals from LCM but now I suppose this is the place to ask; how do you adjust the fit of the doors... properly. My side door seems loose at the top so I guess the first thing is new seals as adjusting the catch plate hasn’t helped. Is there a tutorial somewhere?

Thanks,

Gregor

If you mean a hinged side door, the smaller of the two on that side (aka 40% door) double check the door-mounted top latch itself---occasionally one or both of the Torx drive attaching screws work themselves loose. Your symptoms suggest that might be the case here.

(That particular door also has its lower latch mounting attachment spot welded to the door shell---if/when it becomes loose the door won't catch properly onto that strike causing the door to rattle or not fit correctly).

Actually adjusting the doors as they fit to the body is all about achieving a flush fit of the doors to the body as viewed from the outside. You should have an almost flush surface front-to-rear (and side-to-side across the back doors). "Flush" isn't the correct word as the bodies aren't perfectly flat, basically you want no corners or edges of any one door sitting proud of the body or its mating door.

Door shells as they're fitted to the bodies are very adjustable via the hinges. Typically doors don't go out of alignment unless something has acted upon them; hinges becoming loose (not likely) or one of the pivot pins has worn. It's also possible if you're not the original owner someone else has attempted this to less-than-successful results; again not something that "usually" happens.

A simple test of the hinge pins is opening the door, grabbing the bottom edge and gently lift upwards. Solid hinges will move very little (if at all). Also, watching the door shell carefully as its opened or closed just after the latch has caught or been released from its strike should also show no signs of up/down movement.

If any of this is more than you'd care to DIY talk to a local body shop that specializes on collision-damaged vehicles---they should be quite accustomed to diagnosing and adjusting as needed.

HTH---if not let me know how I can!

[arctictraveller]

Adjusting the door fit involves a bit of magic, and it's easy to make things worse rather than better. I'd leave adjustment to the experts. Both my rear and side 40% door will remain slightly loose if I just close it normally, but if I give them a solid push at the top, they will latch firmly. It's easy to see if they are not completely latched when the opposite door is closed, as you can see the first door bounce a little bit. I also discovered most of the dust coming in the rear doors was getting in around one of the hinges. Some of my hinges have little rubber seals around the hinge, where it enters the door. Where that was missing, I noticed a trail of dust on the interior cabinet wall directly across from the hinge. I sealed the gap up with some sealant, and probably reduced the dust ingress by 80% or more.

[mikracer]

I attempted to adjust my side doors a couple years back, but after loosening the torx screws, adjusting was impossible since there wasn't any type of slot to move back and forth. The barn doors and rear doors rattle quite a bit, so I put some electrical tape on the strikers to create a buffer between the contact points.

[sakurama]

Originally Posted by arctictraveller

Adjusting the door fit involves a bit of magic, and it's easy to make things worse rather than better. I'd leave adjustment to the experts.

When you say it like that I take it as a challenge!

When I get the seals I'll replace them and see how that changes the situation. My next plan is to open the rear doors up and Dynamat the entire interior of each door and maybe even the plastic shrouds around the windows. There's a lot of hollow stuff back there.

Thanks all for the tips. I'll report back with how things worked out.

Gregor

[NavyNuke]

I used LMC seals on 82 bronco(AZ sun rot).

Worked great, gonna check my barn doors adjustments when I get home now

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

[JWA]

Originally Posted by arctictraveller

Adjusting the door fit involves a bit of magic, and it's easy to make things worse rather than better.

That can be true if one jumps into this without knowing or bettering understanding how to diagnose what the door fit situation is. Certainly there seem to be too many points of adjustment but in reality most tweaks are so minor which does make getting it wrong difficult if you're not patient.

Doors that bounce when closed can be hinge/latch/strike issues or all of those but assuming no collision damage or previous owner attempts at adjusting things latches and strikes are the first suspect areas. In fact if the seals were complete removed parts in good working order would have the doors closing solidly, no bouncing at all.

The rubber seals are only to keep elements outside---they're not necessarily part of the door latching scheme. Mind you with a mal-adjusted door they can interfere with door operation.

I'd check attaching screws of the latches as mounted inside the doors--those can work loose especially if some has removed or replaced latches at some point. On my own van a few of the upper latch screws have loosened up leading to an ill fitting latch/strike combination.

Door shell wise regarding sound deadening---with the trim panels removed just place some R-13 unfaced insulation batts cut to a close size inside---that alone makes a world of difference. Lining the plastic interior trim panels isn't necessary unless you like spending money on Dynamat, et al.

I have a van with several mis-adjusted doors so I'll post a few photos along with an initial guess how to correct the fit. Assuming this thread stays alive I'll post those images here.

[arctictraveller]

Originally Posted by JWA

That can be true if one jumps into this without knowing or bettering understanding how to diagnose what the door fit situation is.

I have a van with several mis-adjusted doors so I'll post a few photos along with an initial guess how to correct the fit. Assuming this thread stays alive I'll post those images here.

I managed to get my drivers door out of adjustment by rolling backwards into a solid object with the door open. It still closed ok, but was now hitting the trailing edge of the fender as it opened and closed. A buddy who was the shop foreman at the largest body shop in Fairbanks and has his own shop now helped me fix it. Since it still closed just fine he didn't want to attempt re-aligning the hinges and striker plate, so we just loosened the fender mounting bolts and forced it a bit further forward while re-tightening the bolts. He looked at my side and rear doors which take some effort to close completely and felt the alignment was fine, and said rather than attempting to improve the alignment, I should just push at the top of the door when closing to insure the top latch closes tightly. None of this is to say that you can't improve the alignment, I'm just not brave enough to attempt it cuz it's highly likely I'll make it worse.

[sakurama]

Front door seals are in!







Body seals don't seam to be "handed" and are very easy to pull and replace.



Door seals use both clips and a channel seal. Red clips are for the left door and green are for the right side. This flies in the face of my years in high end hifi where my mantra was, "Red is right is 2" to help me keep the channels straight. Oh well.



I collect crappy old flea market tools or ones that I inherit from relatives who don't bother to buy "nice" tools and I repurpose them. I'd never grind my Wiha or SnapOn screwdrivers but cheap stuff is ripe for modification without guilt. Once rounded and smoothed it makes a good "spudger" to help the upper part of the seal into the door channel. The lower clips push in by hand for the most part...



But the other end of the budget screwdriver makes for a good, smooth and rounded tool to press in the more stubborn green clips.



I took the opportunity to install an extended wire for the temperature probe on the new thermometer that I installed in the roof console that I made a while back. There's a full build on that in my build thread here.



I missed not having an outdoor temperature for when it gets close to freezing. Over xmas we had some decent ice storms and I was never sure what was ice or what was melted water unless I brake checked and while that's the surest way I'm glad to have this as a reminder.

Now to my next question for this helpful group. Where can you find rear and side door seals? LMC is out of stock and the local Ford dealer wanted almost $350 for each door and seamed pretty confused about it was well. With the front seals under $200 I'm not about to spend $700 for the back doors.

Otherwise the new seals make for some very tight and solid shutting doors. Big improvement.

Gregor

[JWA]

Originally Posted by sakurama

I took the opportunity to install an extended wire for the temperature probe on the new thermometer that I installed in the roof console that I made a while back.

Where in your build thread are more details on your roof console? I've often thought of something similar, wouldn't mind seeing how your's came to be.

Originally Posted by sakurama

Now to my next question for this helpful group. Where can you find rear and side door seals? LMC is out of stock and the local Ford dealer wanted almost $350 for each door and seamed pretty confused about it was well. With the front seals under $200 I'm not about to spend $700 for the back doors.
Gregor

Your Ford dealer is either high on crack or simply not understanding what you want/need. Although its not much better new OEM seals for each hinged door shouldn't cost more than $100 each, this being the seal mounted on the door shell; body seals (where used) would be less.

There are a total of three rear door seals: one for the right side door, two for the left side. Here's an eBay link to new Ford OEM seals, this one for the right side door: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...2a%22&_sacat=0

Sorry if I'm repeating myself here but maintaining your door seals is as easy as a yearly application of a wet-type silicone lubricant spray like 3M 08877 will keep them soft and pliable for many years. I have a 2000 E250 with its original seals that are still working just fine.

HTH