renewing roof seals

[JLT]

Greetings, all!

I’ve received my new roof, roof vent, and roof window seals from JustKampers, but there were no installation instructions. I wrote to them yesterday for some answers to questions I had, but have received no reply. And the Dormobile company has not deigned to answer my last two e-mails and my letter posted to them, so I have decided not to rely on help from that quarter.

The questions were:

is the roof seal applied dry, or should I use a sealant or glue to install it?

Similarly, are the roof vent seals applied dry or using a sealant/glue? The originals (or at least the ones that came with the car) were made of some sort of foam, but the new ones are like miniatures of the roof seal itself, with a gripper channel and an O-sectioned seal. I’m guessing that the seal goes around the fibreglass top rather than the vents itself, but don’t know for sure.

Lastly, the original roof window seal is configured as a sort of H-channel, with one side having a depression into which an insert is fiited to lock the seal in place. The original seal (or what was left of it) looks as though that depression-and-insert side was positioned on the outside. Is there a good reason for that, or was it simply that it was easier for Dormobile to apply it that way to the roof? Also, it appears that sealant was applied on the flanges of the seal that were outside, with the inside flanges dry. That seems to make sense to me, but the truth is that there was so much gunk applied by Previous Owner, in an attempt to rejuvenate the seal, that it’s impossible to tell if the seal was installed that way.

If somebody on this board has attempted this operation and has learned the answers to these questions, I would deeply appreciate a response as soon as possible. And I’ll write up the procedure I used and post it to the forum, in hopes that the next poor bloke that attempts this operation has a little more guidance than I did.

[Jonny]

Hi, I think all the seals should be applied dry, I only have experience of the window seal, but don’t recall seeing any glue used anywhere else.

The window seal has the insert facing outwards, the glass goes in and the insert is then pushed in to hold the glass in place, this is a fiddly job, there is a special tool you can use, but a flat headed screwdriver will do, basically you have to open the gap with the tool, then pushing the insert. You’ll have painful fingers after.

Good Luck

Regards
John

[marc78]

Hi,
Hope this will help, yes fingers get premature ageing on this job…
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=249

[JLT]

@marc78 wrote:

Hi,
Hope this will help, yes fingers get premature ageing on this job…
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=249

That was just what I was looking for! Thanks very much.

I’ve installed one of the skylight windows so far, having spent five hours finding out what didn’t work. The system that did work was to glue the gasket onto the fiberglass, on the outside only. The insert was on the outside because that’s really the only way to work … over the van, with the top down, instead of having to do everything while looking up and trying to hold the glass up.

I held the gasket in place with every small clamp and spring clamp I had. When the glue set up, I set the glass in. That was actually the hardest part, since I was working alone, coaxing the glass in using a putty knive and two butter knives to pull the rubber lip up and over the glass. The last step was to put the insert in. I didn’t have the special tool, so I used a large dull flat-bladed screwdriver.

When setting in the glass and inserting the insert, I used Windex (a type of ammonia-based glass cleaner) as a lubricant, and that definitely helped.

When my fingers stop spasming, I’ll do the other one tomorrow.

[JLT]

I’ve written up my experiences with installing the roof seals here:

http://www.itinerant-air-cooled.com/viewtopic.php?p=84440#84440

I’d like to take the opportunity to thank those who have posted previous comments on this subject. It was gratifying to know that other people were having many of the same experiences I had.

[JLT]

An update …

Now that the rainy season has arrived in California, I’ve had a chance to test my skylight seal installation.

After the first heavy rain, I noticed some leakage, so I applied some silicone seal around the edges of the gasket, both on the glass side and the roof side. That seemed to do the trick.

However, a few months later I went on a ten-day business trip, during which time it rained like stink. (I came home to find a foot of water in the basement due to a failed sump pump, but that’s another story ….)

I noticed several wet spots on the inside of the VW, all directly under the skylights. So it must have been leaking again. My next thought is to see if anybody knows of a spray-on sealant that would definitely seal any gaps or cracks, even the ones that aren’t apparent to the eye. Can anybody help?

[jkhackney]

Hi JLT,

Sorry to hear it’s leaking. I don’t have any experience besides what I’ve posted. The Previous Owner slathered silicone on the outside of my old seals, and it didn’t work; they still leaked. So I don’t think there’s a good way to seal them from outside the seal. In your situation I’d be tempted to take the seals out and re-install them, making sure the “H” is the right way round (the thin slit seals on the roof side and the thick one seals the window side) and using polyurethane (which glues and seals it) or silicone (which just seals it) in the slit before installation.

Installing one window I used silicone on the roof edge and nothing on the window edge, and I used no sealant installing the second window, because it had made the installation of the first one so slippery and difficult. They withstood a dousing of rain when they were just finished, but since the vehicle isn’t on the road and is in a shed, I haven’t tested them beyond that.

If you want to try new seals, I bet you can find a local supplier that caters to owners of camping trailers or boats. I found this one online:
http://www.sealsdirect.co.uk/bbCMS/shopping.asp?intDepartmentId=4

-Jeremy

[JLT]

@jkhackney wrote:

Hi JLT,

In your situation I’d be tempted to take the seals out and re-install them, making sure the “H” is the right way round (the thin slit seals on the roof side and the thick one seals the window side) and using polyurethane (which glues and seals it) or silicone (which just seals it) in the slit before installation.

-Jeremy

Hmm. I just took a look at one of the pieces left over from the stuff I got from justkampers, and I can’t see any difference between the two sides. So maybe the seals they’re selling aren’t really the ones for the job.

Has anybody else had problems with the seals that justkampers provides?

@jkhackney wrote:

If you want to try new seals, I bet you can find a local supplier that caters to owners of camping trailers or boats. I found this one online:
http://www.sealsdirect.co.uk/bbCMS/shopping.asp?intDepartmentId=4

-Jeremy

Thanks for the link. My experience is that few of these suppliers will ship outside the UK, but I could always look around here and see what I can find.

[jkhackney]

Hi,
The “H”-profile for my Land Rover Martin Walter roof is asymmetric, as the window is thicker than the fiberglass: I think it is 3mm on the roof side and 4 or 5mm on the window side (please don’t take my word for it of course, and caliper your own roof and windows). I put the first one in backwards and wasn’t making progress in the corner, and had to switch it round.

I bet you’ll easily find a supplier of seals in CA. Lots of old cars have this type of 2-part seal so I bet any autoglass shop would have a tip on a supplier or even sell it to you from their stocks. You could even get a chromed filler strip 😉

I got my (roof) window seals from Dormobile LTD, just took a while. I think Tim gets them from the company whose site I sent you.

-Jeremy

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