Rubber "A" Pillar Seals.

[lotusles]

Hello All
I'm a newbie here and have been reading the posts with interest. Jamie - can you still provide seals for sale please? Particularly Header / pillar seal?
Regards
Peter

Ditto Please

[Peterehill]

Hello Jamie, I have an S2, do your seals fit these? If so I would be interested in a set. Does your set include the falling pillar and intermediate seals over the doors as I need to replace these as well.

[lotusnut]

Hi Jamie, have you any more of the "A" post seals, pm me with prices please

[Saltire]

Hello Jamie, I have an S2, do your seals fit these? If so I would be interested in a set. Does your set include the falling pillar and intermediate seals over the doors as I need to replace these as well.

I can confirm that Jamie’s excellent seals fit the S2 extremely well. They do take a certain amount of careful alignment to get the fit just so, but once that’s done, they’re watertight. Completely. The only problem from our point of view is that Jamie does this as a sideline, not as a full time activity. Furthermore, it’s very labour-intensive for him to make each set by hand, and so - as I understand it - large-scale ‘production’ simply isn’t feasible.

Personally, I’m extremely grateful to Jamie for all the hard work he’s put into the seals, but I’m afraid the foam rubber ones will be around for a while to come. Somewhere on here (I can’t find it at the moment), Jamie did write a post where he described how to make the seals and where (which cars) he obtained the original seals which he then modifies. Have a search for that and perhaps you could try a DIY job.

[Peterehill]

Hi Jonathan
Jamie has been very obliging and I have just received a set of his seals. Will be fitting them in the New Year.
Peter

[Saltire]

Brilliant, glad to hear - they really do make a difference. Good luck with the A pillar channel fixing screws though - I had to drill mine out

[Jamie N]

Brilliant, glad to hear - they really do make a difference. Good luck with the A pillar channel fixing screws though - I had to drill mine out

Its not always necessary to remove the pillar brackets though Jonathan, most I have personally done haven't needed anything other than meticulously
cleaning out the old sponge, occasionally I have found it where one bracket was out by a couple of MM whilst the other side was spot on, the brackets
have elongated screw holes which is great for adjusting but can also mean that when originally fitted they could vary position. When re-fitting
them they have to be sealed against the pillar exceptionally well otherwise water can leak in behind them entering the cabin and can often be
very difficult to trace, most important is to get the pillar itself totally free of any corrosion, dust , grease and other contaminants.

One of the main aspects I have found on how tightly waterproofed the Elan can be is how well set up the door drop glass is, some of them have a lot
of 'floppy' side to side movement, which has a detrimental effect on how the glass lands on the seals and more importantly the pressure against it, bad
weather strips exacerbate that problem ( The Honda weather strips when fitted correctly are strong enough against the glass they can alleviate some of
the problem of loose windows).

The latest version of the combined Header / A pillar seal has very little in common with the seals from a couple of years ago, things have moved on a bit
since then, although some seals will always be ridiculously difficult to create replacements for, the door surround seals for example, although I have done
a few pairs and made some nice upgrades I have always felt with that seal it was a flawed design from the beginning, although I have never actually
seen a brand new original on a car, from what I can deduce from the ones I have seen is that when closing the door, the top part of the seal rubs against the base
of the B pillar seal, which appears to have the effect of eventually destroying it, be interesting to hear other opinions on that though.

As far as I have seen there are no seals on any modern vehicle doors which actually 'rub' over one another as the door closes, only landing directly onto the other. I have always meant to have a good go at developing something with a better design for that part, maybe at some point but for the time being just not enough hours in the day (and chronic tennis elbow doesn't help!!! ).

[Saltire]

Jamie, sorry to hear about the tennis elbow

Trust me, I didn’t want to remove the channels (in fact I’ve only done one side at present). On the drivers side, the seal as presented with the channel in its original position was at a considerable angle to the window, so the lip on the seal didn’t contact the window all the way down. I’ve improved it a lot by changing the angle, using the built-in adjustment, although I did have to drill some screws out, but it could do with a bit more fettling to be totally watertight.

The latest version of the combined Header / A pillar seal has very little in common with the seals from a couple of years ago, things have moved on a bit since then

I suppose you don’t by any chance offer a firmware upgrade?

If only I didn’t live so far from Fife Maybe next time I go up to Duns I’ll bring the Elan and pop across the bridge for an extra couple of days for you to check my handiwork. I have good friends in Elie I could go and see.

[Steve A]

Jamie, sorry to hear about the tennis elbow

Trust me, I didn’t want to remove the channels (in fact I’ve only done one side at present). On the drivers side, the seal as presented with the channel in its original position was at a considerable angle to the window, so the lip on the seal didn’t contact the window all the way down. I’ve improved it a lot by changing the angle, using the built-in adjustment, although I did have to drill some screws out, but it could do with a bit more fettling to be totally watertight.

The latest version of the combined Header / A pillar seal has very little in common with the seals from a couple of years ago, things have moved on a bit since then

I suppose you don’t by any chance offer a firmware upgrade?

If only I didn’t live so far from Fife Maybe next time I go up to Duns I’ll bring the Elan and pop across the bridge for an extra couple of days for you to check my handiwork. I have good friends in Elie I could go and see.

Or better still Jamie could do a tour of England and Wales

[Steve A]

Jamie as ever is spot on, the seals are flawed, not just because they are feeble but also because of the way they quite literally rub themselves to pieces.
Here is a typical example from my archives:
Here is a standard seal screwed to the frame (with no other seals present) the roof is folded down and you can see how the seal gets squashed by the frame this happens to every Elan from the first day it left the show room.



Stop what you're doing and go out and look at your car and this is what you'll see

[Jamie N]

If only I didn’t live so far from Fife

Whereas others might say 'Glad I live so far from Fife' , only kidding (a wee bit). You are more than welcome Jonathan, I'm certain
we could fettle any remaining bits to be done.

Steve... I was mainly on about the bit of seal at the top of the door card rubbing over the falling pillar seal base, but you are correct
about the Intermediates and the side parts of the header seal too, its the opening and closing of the hood that does most of the damage
to them. A regular wipe with some Vaseline on them does help though, but that would only be of use if you have undamaged ones, and if
you have that you need to get the lottery on 'cos your luck's in.

[NewLogik]

Hi Jamie, is the seal available for sale ? I finally got an Elan myself and would benefit from this.