Replacing the T-Top seals on my ‘75 Stingray
After reading some reviews on replacing the T-top weather strip seals, it sounded straight forward. The reviewer’s tale that I read said that the new seals fit perfectly, and the few screws that needed to come out came out easily. Not in my case!
I ordered the new seals from Summit Racing. I already had the black sealant from when I re-glued down the weather striping on my doors.
Stripping off the old seals was straight forward, but a bit tedious. After they were ripped off, I pulled out the old plastic “T” fasteners from the T-top. Then I scraped of the old glue from the T-top using a screwdriver and wood chisel. Most of the four screws that had held down the seal at the front were rusted fast and I had to drill them out. Then I removed the chrome trim that these were mounted in so I could remove the remainder of the the screws. Some of these I was able to get out using Vice Grip pliers on the bottom side of the screws. The rest I heated with a torch, doused in water while hot (a trick I learned long ago), then they came out easily.
After dry-fitting the new seals, I found that there were “T” fasteners in some places in the new seal but no matching holes in the T-top, so I drilled new holes for those. Also, the original seals had steel molded in at the front so the four screws would not pull through the seals, but the ones I had bought did not have this. When fastening the new seals, I tried to put screws in the pre-punched holed in the molding but the screws pulled right through the molding. This is when I found out how fast the black sealant dries! The seals came with four extra “T” fasteners, so I pushed these through instead of using the screws (I needed four more for both T-tops so I used some of the old ones). The rest of the job was simply to lay a bead of the black sealant under the seal and push the “T” fasteners in the corresponding holes in the T-top. The new seals did not seem to fit very well at the two front corners, but some extra sealant there seemed to hold. I then installed the T-tops on the car and let the sealant dry overnight.
This was not as easy nor as well fitting as I had anticipated, but the job is done, and maybe now I can drive in the rain without a raincoat on.
🙄 Uh...what the heck is that??! lol
Joel Adams
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