First Generation Firebird-L Mailing List .........................................................................
The originals don't fill in the center, which seemed wierd to me too. I think the originals are a bit thicker plus they use a soft puddy all the way around the gasket. Mine was still really plyable, which surprised me. The OER's are a stretch fit to get them around the lens. So, they end up folding in on all four corners. The tail panel mounting plate is in the way so you can NOT pull the corners out with your fingers to get them to fit right. My fix for the leaky/goofy gasket problems were as follows: 1. Use weather-strip rope (1-strand) between housing and lens before screwing the lens down. This brings the lens up off the housing about 1/8" (careful, the top screws barely have enough to grab on), which gives you some extra thickness. With this alone, the gasket almost touches all the way around when fitted to the panel, but not quite. 2. Contact cement the gasket all the way around the ends to help keep the corner of the gasket from folding in. 3. Use weather-strip rope (3 or 4 strands) around the perimeter of the lens holes in the tail panel. Now you have enough thickness so you are actually smashing the gasket all the way around the permiter when you tighten it. 4. Fit (I had to tuck the corners of the gaskets from the outside of the car on two corners even with the contact cement aid), tighten, and check with water hose. I got one in this afternoon and it doesn't leak. Yeah! Piece of *&% gaskets! If the Soft Seal ones don't have the stretch fit issue, these would be the way to go, i.e. one less problem. Sheen> .........................................................................> Are your stock ones thicker? Mine are OER as well, and the painter> installed them backward at first, so they leaked. I had him turn them> around and they worked fine, except for the slight leak on the passenger> side. I was surprised that they don't fill in the center strip of steel> in the tail panel. Did your originals fill in that strip?> > Andy> > S Sterchi wrote:> > > _________________________________________________________________ Connect to the next generation of MSN Messenger http://imagine-msn.com/messenger/launch80/default.aspx?locale=en-us&source=wlmailtagline ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Submissions to Firebird-L: <[email protected]> Unsubscribe from Firebird-L: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Help: <http://FirstGenFirebird.org/firebird/Firebird-L.html> Classifieds: <http://FirstGenFirebird.org/ubb/> Owner Pictures: <http://FirstGenFirebird.org/show/> Donations: <http://FirstGenFirebird.org/store/cart.mv?999999> FGF Merchandise: <http://FirstGenFirebird.org/store>
