Re: Rubber seal

> Lawrence Johnson (ljohnson@halhinet.on.ca)
> wrote on Sat, 18 Jan 1997 at 19:21:23 -0600:
>
> Just before the PO sold the Westy to us, he did this "repair" - he
> removed the rusted metal strip and glued with GOOP on to the top.
> What a mess, and it's coming off in spots, and I can't get it off in
> some spots. Some warm summer day we'll have to remove all the
> smeared GOOP and install a replacement. 
>
> I'm not saying that it can't be done neatly and securely, its just
> that the PO was inept. I'm not willing to see if I'm just as inept
> GOOP-wise.
>
> Larry
> '86 Syncro Westy

Well, I seem to be going the cheapo route too because as the retaining
clip rusts away and the seal droops down, I'm cleaning out the rusty
pieces and gluing sections at a time back up in place with GE Silicone
II clear sealer.  The 10-year-old rubber seal itself is still in good
shape and is not rotting away anywhere so I'm still trying to use it. 
The hard part is getting all of the rusty pieces of old clip out of
the seal, don't even think of glue until you can get the groove
cleaned out.  I don't know exactly what "GOOP" is, but I chose GE
Silicone II because if I ever want to replace the whole seal, it
shouldn't be too difficult to peel off the soft silicone rubber as
it's not going to bond rock hard to the fiberglass top. Didn't have to
use very much Silicone II, I just did the left side and half of the
right side at the same time which used most of one tube, it set pretty
fast and I didn't have to keep holding it up in place for very long. 
So now I have a rubber seal that is about half old rusty clip and half
silicone sealed, sort of a work in progress but you can't tell the
difference as there isn't any drooping.  As the rest of the clip 
rusts out, I'll do big sections at a time until it's all silicone 
sealed.  If I had torn the whole rubber seal off, I guess it would be 
a toss up between a replacement seal with an aluminum clip, and 
trying to glue back the old one which would be difficult without 
something or someone to hold it in place until the silicone cures.
I might try to glue one section at a time between corners because of 
this gravity problem.  I know that some of you will cringe at the 
thought of this patch job and will advocate something more 
professional, but so far it seems to be working OK and I don't plan 
on selling the camper anytime soon.
-- 
Brian Kraft <bhkraft@gj.net> Grand Junction, Colorado
'86 Westy GL Syncro
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