Rear coupe window seal is leaking like a sieve. Anyone replaced theirs recently? It appears genuine seals are NLA or nearly so, and only URO parts seal are generally available. My experience with URO makes me cautious. Anyone have recent experience with them, or have a source for a quality replacement?
From a search here, I see that I should use sealant between the gasket and glass, and gasket and body. What sealant should I use?
What tools did you use to get the old seal and glass out of the car?
I’ve read most of the old threads here on the process, but does anyone have access to an illustrated DIY? The factory manuals are most unhelpful. Sowell’s links are broken on his website, so that pictorial is unavailable. I’ve replaced lots of glass, but only the bonded variety.
MacGregor doesn’t list ANY parts for the XJS on their website. I also tried the seal part number, but nothing came up. I might try emailing, but it doesn’t look hopeful.
I used a URO gasket for the windshield with no issues; use a non-hardening windshield sealer (CR Lawrence) butyl. Messy stuff. Use 1/4” rope from the inside, wrapped into body gap on seal to pull seal lip over the metal fence. Install seal on glass and moldings into seal (except corners) before installing it into the body.
Jal, try to dry out the fuel tank area under the rear window seal. Apparently the support foam part can get wet and don’t easily dry out. I was told this caused my fuel tank to get pinhole rust and I had to switch out the tank. Maybe just leaving the opening open to the air for a while. I would use a fan to get some air at the area to make sure everything is dry all the way down. Obviously, no electric sparks should be anywhere near. The symptoms I had were pretty obvious, you could easily smell the gas around this the tank. Hope that helps.
I pulled the rear seats, rear shelf, sound insulation under the shelf and seats, rear side panels, and for good measure because it’s easy, the headliner. I found rust on shelf area and in the seat wells, but after removing the rust scale, just two small holes in the shelf.i patched them with Por15 and some fiberglass matt. Also coated the shelf area with Por15 after wire brushing the area to remove loose rust scale and to roughen the paint surface. I’ve had tremendous success with Por15 and small, non-structural patches. Tomorrow I’ll clean and coat the rear seat well area. No rust holes there. I’m going to get some non-absorbing sound deadening for the rear shelf and seat wells.
I pulled the glass out today. Fortunately the rear window punch weld is in excellent shape. Just slight surface rust in one lower corner that I treated with Por15 after removing rust scale. The previous owner had used some RTV to attempt to seal the rear window, and that took some time to clean off the pinch weld and bright trim.
I got a couple of tubes of butyl windshield sealant that I’ll put in the window groove and pinch weld groove of the new gasket. I imagine it will be a mess which is why I removed so much stuff in the back.
Once I get the rear window in, and before I put the rear interior back together, I’ll spray everything down with a garden hose and pressure washer and ensure I have no leaks. The current leak ruined the lower rear seat and I don’t intend to go thru that again.
Do I put sealant in the window to rubber groove before or after I install the rear window in the car?
How do you get the bright trim to stay on the rubber while you reinstall the glass? Masking tape?
It looks like access to the lower edge of the rubber to body area will be difficult to get to with sealant after the glass is back in the body. Is there adequate access to do it?
Fill the cavity that the glass fits into, then install on glass. Install upper and lower moldings. Fill cavity that pinchweld fits into, then install glass. Super messy, but only way. Then fill any gaps with more butyl, then water test.
At least that’s how I did mine.
Yes. That’s how I did it, messy as I said. When I did it, I had the headliner, quarter trim, and rear seat out. I couldn’t see any other way to seal it.