Restoration Spec. Seals update

I called Restoration Specialties today and the owner claims he is ready to send me all 3 seals for the pop out windows for my approval before he proceeds with production. He says all 3 are done. He also says the front door seals(which I received prototypes of 8 months ago) have now been fitted with the wire pieces that help attach the seal to the door thru the little holes they pop into. I had the prototype door seals at Baker's last June and they seemed ok but without the wires it makes installation difficult. He says the cargo door seals will be done very soon also.
The vent window seals are more complicated and they tried to do them but werent happy with the results so they had another company make them for them. Originally I was supposed to have a sample of it by December past,but that never happened. They had pricing issues and others with the other company which they say has been resolved now. New date for sample seal is by the end of March.
This all sounds very promising but history with them tells me they haven't met a deadline yet. They say a week on me receiving the seals,I say at least a month but we will see. I hope for once Im wrong about this but it's now been almost 21 months since this venture started and they are at least a year past the expected production date of all the seals.





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Thanks for your effort! I'm sure many on this site will be interested in these products.

Thanks for the update,our vans going in for paint and body work and we will need all new seals when it comes back. Thanks Tim for working on the new seals.

Hi, I'm new here, but it seems that some of these seals are available from Macs now? Why are you trying to source them? Quality issues?

Mac's gets their seals from Dennis Carpenter as do other companies. Most of Carpenter's seals are ok but the front door seals and vent windows are really bad. They also don't even make the 3 pop out window seals. After repeatedly asking Carpenter's to fix the flawed seals and being told they have no interest in doing so we pretty much had no choice but to look elsewhere. There are several other body seals that nobody makes that I'm hoping to get reproduced also.

Lets hope they come through with this. Mine is in desperate need of proper seals.
The Previous owner spent a lot of money on all new seals from Macs, and they suck...!!!

Thanks for sticking with this Tim. I know I'll be needing all new seals this year on the Super8, starting with pop-out windows so I really am hoping they are successful, & the prototypes meet your approval.

Thanks Tim! Kinda hard to make your own rubber seals, less complicated to cut and weld steel or swap engines. These rubber parts will be a big deal. Unlike suspension bushings that you can find surrogates for, door and window seals are pretty specific.

Good to here, I will need some of these this year when I get around to painting.

Tim, any word on the A stuff?
They were also supposed to do the wire in the front door seals and the vent window seals for those.
I've been behind on my project, but they are even further behind!

Excellent work Tim...I to will be looking for seals in the next year or so and if they work as good as your hoping...I'm in.

RodStRace wrote:Tim, any word on the A stuff?
They were also supposed to do the wire in the front door seals and the vent window seals for those.
I've been behind on my project, but they are even further behind!

Im not in the loop on any of the "A" stuff. I ll try and ask next time.

Thanks for heading-up this work, Tim! I'll be interested in the pop-out seals when they become available. Maybe some others too.

My door seals are bad, cracked and leaking. Can anyone tell me what is wrong with the seals sold by Mac's? Do they not fit? Still leak? Just a pain to install?

Tim what is the ETA for the Econo door seals?

Thanks, JT

No firm eta on the new seals. Mac's get theirs from Carpenter's so does everyone else. The problem is the front door seals are made from too dense of rubber that doesnt have enuf give to it. Its too thick on the front edge and won't collapse like it should to form a good seal. A lot of folks cant even get their door to close without slamming it really hard,some causing damage when they do. The solution is to carve up a brand new seal just to make the door shut. For $100 bucks you shouldn't have to hack it up to make it fit.
The vent rubbers are just poor fit period and make winodw operation extremely difficult when trying to close. The bottom edge doesnt fit right either.
As for the 3 different popout window seals,nobody has ever made those until now.

How bout the seal for the windshield, side and back door and the fixed windows?

Gaunch wrote:How bout the seal for the windshield, side and back door and the fixed windows?

Most of those are ok but some report inconsistancies in those also as far as correct length which sometimes buckles in the corners due to being a little long or short.

What is interesting is that I visited Fred a month or so ago and he is putting Ron's pickup back together. Fred had great success with new carpenter seals but he of course had the whole window apart in pieces and did have to modify and glue a little bit. Far from ideal, but I guess if you have all the parts loose in front of you and 30 years experience with these vans, it can be done.

Tim this is good information to hear. I thought this project died on the vine.

Mike

I got the front door seals from MACs and Tim is right about them being too thick in some spots (I had to hack them up in a couple of spots)..
Just not what I expected for $100.

MikeShums wrote:What is interesting is that I visited Fred a month or so ago and he is putting Ron's pickup back together. Fred had great success with new carpenter seals but he of course had the whole window apart in pieces and did have to modify and glue a little bit. Far from ideal, but I guess if you have all the parts loose in front of you and 30 years experience with these vans, it can be done.

Tim this is good information to hear. I thought this project died on the vine.

Mike

Mike, Fred told me about that but he has no idea when those seals were obtained from Carpenter's. Ron could have got them a long time ago when they actually weren't as bad. He also could have got them off ebay from someone who had them a long time and never used them. Originally the seals werent as bad as they are now. Somewhere along the line the molds were either changed,worn out,warped or something but the new ones just aren't the same. The problems are way too common and if you put an NOS seal next to Carpenter's the problems with each seals is very obvious. There are several discrepancies with each seal. I actually did this to show Restoration Specialties the problem but they saw it themselves immediately upon inspection. They were actually very surprised Carpenter's would have even made the seal as different as they did from the original. The vent window is a very difficult one to make. Even Res.Spec. couldnt get it right so they are having a company with more capable tooling make that one seal for them. They dont want to release a new seal if it's no better than Carpenter's so they aren't rushing anything.

A fair point.

Any updates on an ETA for the door seals? My currently leak like a 51 year old door seal.

I was told for the umpteenth time they were ready and being sent to me. AFter 4 weeks I called today and got the same dam speech as last time pretty much. These guys are just plain slow. Today they said they just need to bag em up and mark em then they can be sent out but a month ago everything was done and ready to ship. Hmmm,sounds a little fishy to me. Im not stupid,they tell ya what they want to stall til they get damn good and ready at their own slow pace. Guess I'll get em when I get em. I now one thing, I wont be as slow to ship things out as they are cuz they are ridiculous!!

you could walk over and get them quicker...do they still have the van shell that you gave them??

Whenever these are ready, I'M IN!!!!!