Starting the odious and frustrating task of installing the door rubbers on my 66 S-Type. Fresh paint and interior.

The frustration of trying to fit the front seals has me considering taking the door off, even with all the likelihood of paint chips.

Does anyone know if I can remove the four Phillips head screws on the body side and pull the hinge straight rearward to remove the door. Or is there extra stuff in there to complicate that?

Anyone have successful hacks to do this without removing the doors? Any advice welcomed

Steve in Las Vegas

 

The plain fact is that to install the front seals for the front door properly means the door has to come off, no ifs or buts. Easy for Jaguar when they made them as the seals were put on before the doors on the production line !!
If you're worried about paint damage then make sure you put on a load of masking tape on the paint and also attach blankets and other padding, because these door are heavy

 

As Frazer has said "doors off". There is just not enough room to get between the door and wing to get the seal in place. We have covered this topic on the International S Type owners forum which you might like to join. Details can be found at http://www.jagstyperegister.com We have an active forum which covers just the 1963 to 1968 S type Jaguars and if you are rebuilding your car I am sure there is a lot of information on there that you will find informative. If you have any questions there are a number of us who have done full rebuilds on our own S Types and we are always willing to assist in answering questions with photos on that forum.
The front doors are held on as you say with the cross headed screws and that is it. But as said the doors are heavy and I would suggest at least two people to take them off and possibly three to get them back on. Two to hold the door to stop it hitting the wing and one to do up the screws.

 

I'm afraid I totally agree, the door needs to come off and the only way to take it off is leave the hinge on the car and unbolt the door from the hinge.

I had to do one of mine last week as the seal had come loose at the front and I removed the whole door on my own (it was fully built with glass and all) but its quite heavy.

When putting it back it helps to make sure that you clean up the bolts and threads in the door with a tap and die set.

If you take any short cuts with this you will just end up regretting it later i'm afraid.

 

if the seal is good in the impossible door hinge area, and the new seal is the same rubber extrusion shape, just cut the rest of the bad door seal leaving the good seal in place. Then cut the new seal to match and glue the new seal ends to the old section ends using 3M rubber cement or similar.

not the most perfect solution but it eliminates the hassle of having to remove the doors. But if the seal is bad all over, then you have no alternative.

 

You might be able to do that but to be honest removing the door even fully built wasn't that bad and you will end up with a much better job.

 

Homer, I've never had to remove a door so I have no experience with it.

Is there access to unscrew the hinge at the door itself?? If yes, are the bolt nuts fixed or moveable/adjustable?

If the bolt nuts at the door are fixed in place, then aligning the door after removal would be easier than removing the door from the body with entire hinge attached to it.

 

Yes there are three bolts on the top hinge and three in the bottom, they bolt into a plate inside the door with nuts welded to it, the plate can't move that far but does move a bit to allow adjustment. What I did was put some masking tap along two sides of the hinge, (bottom and side) so that I could easily put the door back where it came from.

I'm not sure that you can remove the door with the hinge on it, if you can I would imagine it would be difficult as the door hinge kind of hocks into the door post (note there is a bolt at the back of the hinge into the door pillar.

 

Worst of the job is over. Removing the doors was awkward by myself. I taped and padded all the edges and balanced them on a trolley jack to take the weight. Managed it with only one small chip on the fender edge. Somehow I managed to lose the right rear B pillar seal so that will hold me up until next weekend. Well pleased with the results however. I'll know next time to do that job immediately after painting however. BEFORE interior goes together LOL Thanx for all the advice.


BTW, I'm still desperately seeking radio mount brackets BD 25368 and BD 25367

 

these?

 

Yes, those are the ones. I'm figuring mine were chucked before I got this car as I would NOT have lost those
myself...;-))

 

they are difficult to find as radio installers remove them and throw them away.
Finding the two thumb screws that grab the brackets on each side of the chromed grille on the parcel shelf took me forever.

 

Just a tip. Gluing rubber extrusion to rubber extrusion or mitered corners rubber to rubber, cyanoacrylate "super glue" does a great & permanent job. Used on all joints during my restoration. Gluing to body I used contact adhesive.