Two leaky doors and two rattlers, time to replace all door seals on the Mozo 1.
Waited two months for SAV to get the latest shipment. This stuff is different from prior runs.
It is still the same Trident shape (see PIX below), but fully extruded closed cell foam. Thought
I would share my experience with this new seal on the forum -- some +'s and -'s to watch out for.
The prior material noted by djw, is stiffer than the newer stuff with a less compliant yellow'ish foam core.
The new material is very "stretchy" this can be both a problem and an advantage. First cautionary note,
for a 710K the three door types will require varying lengths of seal to complete. With the 5'th door
measuring in at ~164" which is the longest piece you will need. Fortunately, it occurred to me to
measure each of the 5 seals I received, sorting each per door type saved me from running short.
Even still the longest piece was 2" shorter than the measured need for the 5"th door. I decided to
give it a try and stretch this seal to fit. This turned out to not only work but I found that it was a good
practice for all the doors as a very slight stretch took up any wrinkles in the material. In general I found
cutting door pieces ~1/2" short seemed to do the trick. I haven't checked in with SAV on this but I
suspect that the piece 2" too short for the 5'th door was due to the stretchyness of the material, pulling
it off the reel I'm betting inadvertently ended up short by 2" -- but it didn't matter.
I can't cut strait to save my life. With this new material you now get to cut your own corners for
the 45's. For this I made a Miter and a Joiner. The Miter is made from 1 1/2" square aluminum
tube. Find a seal long enough to cut a 5" to 6" piece to make a mold from. Use non hardening
gasket seal Permatex #2, apply a thin coat of Vaseline on the lobes, insert in a corner of the tubing
and pour in 2 part molding compound. After the recommended curing time, pull the sample out and
presto a copy of the seal cast in the tube. I cut the 45 on a table saw using a high point count Tungsten
carbide blade -- cuts clean but move the material very slow. Polish the faces with Emory as this will be
the cutting surface with a razor. I used the longest razors I could find. You have to think through the angle
to cut the 45's -- you get one chance to get this right
6" piece I pulled form the mold I used for trial cuts and corners -- good practice.
I made a joiner out of 3/4" wood stock just to have a nice firm corner to hold the pieces to be joined.
I used RapidFit to join the corners and the usual 3M weather seal adhesive to fit in the completed seal.
It all came out pretty nice. For those of you who can cut straight and have steady hands this is
probably just unnecessary work. But it sure helped me and it was cool assembling all the cut
pieces per door into a one piece construction that just fit and glued into place.
One disadvantage with this new material is that it is very compliant. Watch how the seal fits when
closing your doors near the door hinge side. The seal may buckle and fold and not slip in place
properly as the material this stuff is very. I waxed and buffed my inner door jams and that made a
good slippery surface to minimize any folding. You want the seal to fit as perfect as possible for at
least a few weeks until the material takes on a "memory". You may also need to use some thin
neoprene as a shim in some places to push in/out the seal to fit proper. I had one corner like this and
that did it, now there seems to be enough memory the shim is not needed. I'll wait for the warm
weather to be sure.
I would be curious to know if anyone else has tried this new material and your experiences.