Hood seals alternative to OEM

[SteveMac]

Like all Elan owners, I have the perennial problem of wet knee syndrome from leaking hood seals. Some interesting stuff on here by Jamie, particularly the header seal replacement with Ford Cougar door seals, that is next on my list to attack.

However, back to the hood seals, these are in 3 parts and the OEM seals as you all know are pieces of sponge rubber that just love soaking up water and releasing it on you.
I looked at the seals on an MGF hood and noted they look remarkably similar, albeit made of EPDM profile rubber as all proper car seals are. So I bit the bullet, got a set of second hand but good seals off fleabay for £20 and compared them to the Elan seals. I decided that they could be made to fit and took stanley knife in hand to the old seals.

The 2 intermediate seals are pretty easy to fit, the longer piece requires some trimming in length to fit but there is a channel in them which slots nicely into the aluminium frame top rail lip. I applied sikkaflex to the channel, placed on the upper rail lip, shut the door with the window up, adjusted the seals to the best position and then applied sikkaflex to the gap inside the seal between the aluminium rail and the seal, Once set, the seals provide decent weatherproofing and are much better than the old ones.

The falling pillar seal is not quite as easy, it still sits nicely in the aluminium rail but the old seal required trimming off at the base to get a good seal. Again our old friend sikkaflex was applied to the rail, seal offered up and the door closed with the window up. Adjustment to the seal was made and left to set.

Not as neat as Jamie's excellent solution but a darned site better than before. I'll take some pictures when I get time.

[clemo]

Like all Elan owners, I have the perennial problem of wet knee syndrome from leaking hood seals. Some interesting stuff on here by Jamie, particularly the header seal replacement with Ford Cougar door seals, that is next on my list to attack.

However, back to the hood seals, these are in 3 parts and the OEM seals as you all know are pieces of sponge rubber that just love soaking up water and releasing it on you.
I looked at the seals on an MGF hood and noted they look remarkably similar, albeit made of EPDM profile rubber as all proper car seals are. So I bit the bullet, got a set of second hand but good seals off fleabay for £20 and compared them to the Elan seals. I decided that they could be made to fit and took stanley knife in hand to the old seals.

The 2 intermediate seals are pretty easy to fit, the longer piece requires some trimming in length to fit but there is a channel in them which slots nicely into the aluminium frame top rail lip. I applied sikkaflex the the channel, placed on the upper rail lip, shut the door with the window up, adjusted the seals to the best position and then applied sikkaflex to the gap inside the seal between the aluminium rail and the seal, Once set, the seals provide a decent weatherproofing and are much better than the old ones.

The falling pillar seal is not quite as easy, it still sits nicely in the aluminium rail but the old seal required trimming off at the base to get a good seal. Again our old friend sikkaflex was applied to the rail, seal offered up and the door closed with the window up. Adjustment to the seal was made and left to set.

Not as neat as Jamies excellent solution but a darned site better than before. I'll take some pictures when I get time.

Nice one Steve ..

Would be good to see these on the car fitted .

[C3LOS]

Sounds like a good cheap solution...would love to see the pics

[Jamie N]

I tried them a couple of years ago in the early days of getting my seals up to a decent standard Steve, quickly moved on to something else though, the rubber on them is very hard almost like a rubber car mat material and quite unforgiving I found, you really want to get yourself some closed cell foam type EPDM.

BTW the wet knee is caused by the header sponge soaking up all the rain that runs to the front of the hood ,which then runs to either end and drips into the cabin off the top of the A pillar seals.

10 / 10 for getting into it and giving it ago though, best of luck. .

[SteveMac]

Hi Jamie, you were right of course, the rubber used for the intermediate seals is quite hard so I had to supplement them with 25mm x 6mm black closed cell sponge tape, stuck over the seals. Quite a good seal now.

As for the header seal, I have found a seal that can be bought from Seals direct, look for part number SRS1888, its a 30mm x 25mm closed cell D seal that fits in the windscreen channel beautifully. I removed the old seal off the hood and put some 25mm x 6mm closed cell sponge tape over the metal channel that is left on the hood. I used contact adhesive for the D seal to windscreen channel and it gives a really tight seal, see pics

headerseal.jpg

headerseal2.jpg

[simonbuk]

Looks effective - did you join it to the A pillar seals ?

[SteveMac]

Yes, I used contact adhesive right across the windscreen channel and on to the small part of the A post seal which wraps over. Stuck well!