Easy and cheap repairs : vinyl, rubber seals and window adjustment

[The German]

In this thread I want to tell about some ideas of how we could repair some things easy and cheap.

1.) Vinyl repair. The vinyl inside the doors of my car had some rips as you can see in the pictures down here (before and after). I bought a vinyl repair set which allows to mix new vinyl-like substance in the correct color. You only have to bring it into rips or fill areas where parts of the vinyl are missing and them harden it with heat. Mostly the heat changed the color a little bit so that I bought a special mixed vinyl color for my interior blue also. I painted the fresh rebuilt vinyl parts with this color and now everything is okay again. Yes, you can see it if you know where the rips were and some of this repaired rips are to be seen relatively clear but it looks a lot better than before. And all that cost me only ca. $50 - a more perfect repair by professionals would have cost much more. Ihave to do the same at the left rear panel too as you can see in the 2nd picture - the upper edge of the panel has no vinyl ... .

[The German]

2.) I replaced the wood grain vinyl at the dashboard on the drivers side (photos of before and after). I took a piece of a in Germany so called "d-c-fix deco film". This was very cheap – only cents !

[The German]

3.) Long time I searched for new rubber weather seals for the doors windows which are outside between the glass of the window and the metal of the door but could not find them. I also asked here for this seal some time ago but got no answers which helped me so that I assumed that these seals are not sold new in our days. That was the reason why I repaired these seals. I bought a rubber seal which I used to replace the outer part of the old seal: after I cut this old part away I fixed the new one to the old good rest with a special rubber adhesive – wonderful, the outer lip presses down to the chrome line so that there is no gap for water, better than the original and looks like new also (photos of before and after). This cost me only $5 ! Now, only a few days ago, I found out that we can buy such seals now from "Convertible-Specialists"; they sell them in a set of 4 - 2 for the outside and 2 for the inside of the both windows - but they are not cheap.

At the glass side of the seals there are 2 soft brushes which stabilize the window; one of them was worn out so I replaced it with a piece which I cut from a rest of a carpet. Because I thought that this couldn´t be wrong I added 3 more of such brushes fastened on a small piece of plastic to get the correct distance of the brush top to the rubber. The carpet was blue, so I painted it black with a marker.

Together with a new window adjustment the windows run up and down now as if they are new – very nice !

[The German]

4.) Window adjustment also was a problem because the plastic parts at the centre bar which leads the window upwards / downwards were worn out and I didn´t know where to get new ones. So I filled the gaps with plastic strips which I cut from an empty plastic bottle (photo), brought new grease on the centre bar and the rattling of the windows was gone !

[The German]

5.) What I searched for a long time too was a new rubber seal which is sitting at the steering bar to protect the joint of the outer and the inner steering bar. I tried to get it from several specialists but no one had it. So also here I had to use a seal which is not made for our cars but could be used as a replacement. I found it in the Netherlands but it was the last one they had. It has nearly the original diameter and length and so I installed it some weeks ago (photos of before and after) – works fine until now !

[The German]

6.) This is no repair - I now added the passenger side mirror which was lying in my cellar a long time (the photos are taken in the garage, excuse the bad quality). The installation was much easier as I thought before. Only the drilling of the holes was not really easy – one have to plan exactly where they have to be drilled and you must drill very carefully. –The remote control wire ends a bit left of the steering wheel under the dashboard. So no one can see it but I can easy adjust the mirror – I love it (should have done this earlier because I now can see the distance between the car and the garage doors frame at the right side much easier during the drive-in- or -out-process ;) )

[Gum,beest]

Those are very useful tips Rolf :xyxthumbs:
I especially like the cost aspect of it, after all in am dutch :D:D:D
I think i will try the woodgrain pieces of my dash the same way as you did
they are accepable at the moment but with your idea they could look like new
What kind of rubber did you use for the steering bar mine is gone too
If i know what kind of rubber is used maybe i can find it
The rest of the repairs i will keep in mind

Adam congratulations from me also :beers:

[The German]

To find the rubber for the steering bar was really difficult, Erik. I took the measurements and a copy of the technical drawing of that part from the Service Manual and sent that to several specialists asking for an replacement seal but always I was informed that they don´t have such a seal. Meanwhile I found a replacement seal made for different parts which could be cut in the way you need it; so I bought that one but found that I only could install that over not into the metall ring coming from the inner part of the steering bar. Then I started searching again.
Also the last asked shop - JAMBROES, NL - first sent me the answer that they don´t have such a seal but a week later they informed me that they found a seal with nearly the correct measurements. So I bought that. It has the inscription X Wagner FC-1331-B15.
To get the correct measurement I cut it in the length and took away a stripe of 5 mm and then installed it with a rubber adhesive. That is not the optimum but good enough.

[73 Centurion]

Excellent repairs! Thanks for sharing.

The window guides that you fixed should work fine, but there is an alternative. The parts are identical on the passenger side. If you can find one in a junkyard the passenger door receives far less use and they are usually in good shape.

I really like the weather seal for the doors. Where did you get the rubber you glued on?

Thanks for the pictures.

John

[Gum,beest]

Thanks Rolf
Jambroes is a local USA parts dealer very near to where i live approx 15 miles
I have heard a lot about him but never bought something there
I will fill in the form on his web-shop http://www.jambroes.nl/ maybe he can find another rubber like the one for our steeringcolums

[The German]

Thanks for your tip to search for good window guides at a junkyard, John, but here in Germany it´s hard to find such parts on junkyards. I´m lucky with my solution of the problem now, but perhaps, if I would travel through the US once in future days, I will remember your advice ! Until then your tip will help other readers of your post.
BTW: at my car I had rattling windows at both sides.

The weather seal rubber which I glued on the old seal I found here :
http://translate.google.de/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.doepper-profile.de%2F&sl=de&tl=en&hl=de&ie=UTF-8

They have really a lot of parts for vintage cars, but most of their parts are for European cars. Guess that you could find everything for Mecedes-Benz for example. On the other hand some of their parts might be of help for other rare cars too. BTW: Quality of the parts is excellent and the shops service too. They have shops in several European states and also in Russia but not in the US.

[Smartin]

Nice work, Rolf!

[Robroy]

Wow Rolf, you have really been busy in the garage! ;)

Replacing old parts with new is something most handy people can manage but doing repairs like these takes some craftsmanship, patience and love to achieve. :xyxthumbs:

[The German]

Thanks, Per, for your kind words. On the other hand my work is only a very little step of restauration compared with what some others of our gang here have done and are currently doing at / with their cars. But I´m proud of these steps - especially because some of the ideas probably could be of help for some others here.