Door Run Weatherstrip Coupe/Hatchback 1979-1993

So far I've done quite a few weatherstripping videos on the Black Pearl, our 1990 Mustang LX project car. Most recently we did the doors, because we had a lot of wind noise from the door. The door weatherstrip is now fixed. There's still a ton of wind noise, though. The culprit is the door run weatherstrip. As you can see, I'm actually missing a complete chunk of it out of here, which is what's allowing the wind to get into the car. Today we're going to show you how to replace a door run weatherstrip on your 1979 through 1993 Mustang.

This door run weatherstrip is going to fit inside the door channel, and it's going to fit your 1979 through 1993 Mustang, except for the convertible or the T-top. This actually has two purposes. It's going to seal up the glass when it goes up in the door channel, but it also keeps the glass from rattling around. If these go bad it can cause all kinds of problems with you Fox-body Mustang.

For this installation, we'll need a 3/8 ratchet, 9-millimeter socket, 10-millimeter socket, small plastic pry bar, Phillips head screwdriver, and a long screwdriver or yardstick.

Compared to some of the other weatherstripping installations we've done, the door run is going to be probably one of the harder ones to do. There are a couple reasons for that. The one is, like you see mine here, they get very dried out, and when they do they crack and will probably come off in pieces. The front part here actually goes all the way down the door. If everything goes perfectly, you get the old weatherstrip out and you can actually slide the new one down the channel and get it down the doorway. For most people, including, I know myself, that's not going to happen. We're going to show you the worst case scenario where we're going to take the door panel off, along with our mirror and the mirror cover to give us access to get the weatherstrip off and get the new one in place.

The first step, remove the door panel. I'm going to start up here at the mirror cover, where I'm removing the screw, and the door cup. Don't forget the small screw here at the bottom of the speaker. With the screws off now, we're going to remove these plastic covers. You can see obviously we're missing one, but we'll remove the other one. Then remove the two bolts inside. With the door handle down I'm going to remove these plugs, and you can remove the armrest and then the door panel. Now, the outside edge should have door pins in it. Ours is actually missing the panel clips. Definitely be replacing them while we have it apart.

With everything out of the way, now you can remove the weatherstripping. Again, mine's very dried. It will probably come off in pieces. Basically work your way down here, and then down here, removing all the original weatherstrip. We're also going to remove our mirror to make it easier to get down in the front. Again, that's the hardest part to install. We're all apart, just double check the channel. Make sure there are no pieces still stuck in here, because of how dried out this gets. A lot of times chunks get left behind. Once it's cleaned out, we're ready to begin the installation.

What we're going to do now actually lubricates the channel just a little bit to make it easier to get the rubber to seat. Now, starting in the back of the door, we're going to work this channel down into place. Again, these are side specific, so when you install them, make sure you grab the correct one. They look very similar, but they are unique. Once that's seated, you can work your way up the channel to the top of the door. Make sure the lip over here is over the edge of the metal. The small plastic pry bar makes this easy. You can use a screwdriver, just be careful not to damage it.

This is going to be the hardest part of the installation. Once again, we're going to use a little WD-40 to lube up the channel. Pretty much what you have to do here is just slide the weatherstrip channel down into the metal channel. That lubrication will make it easier. It's still difficult to do. A long screwdriver, anything you can get that's thin and long where you can push it down will make the job a lot easier.

Once you have the weatherstripping in the channel, you've got to make sure it is all the way seated. If you don't the first time you put the window up, it's just going to rip the weatherstrip right off, you'll have to start all over again. What you're going to do is work your way down. Again, a very long screwdriver will help. A paint stick works really well. Just make sure you work your way down and push it into place. At this point, if you make sure you have the weatherstrip completely seated, I like to test it first. Plug in the window controls and put the glass up and down, make sure it doesn't bind on anything. When you put the window up the first time, it might bind just a little bit, but what it will do is actually work itself through the channel, and after the first or second time it will be much better. Make sure it seats there, and now we begin reassembly.

All right, once the door is back together, we're going to repeat the process on the other side, and your installation is finished.

As I mentioned before the door run weatherstrip is a little more involved, a little more difficult than some of the other ones, but if you take your time, it isn't really that terrible to do. Between that and my belt lens being in decent shape with the new door weatherstrip, the car's going to be a lot more sealed up inside, and be a lot nicer to drive. As far as the installation, as far as the time goes, I would say give yourself about an hour to an hour and a half per door, and be back on the road in no time.