Scuttle panel seal

[8ball_Rob]

When I took the cam cover off yesterday (see my other thread here), I started by removing the scuttle panel. The rubber seal between the scuttle and windscreen was firmly bonded to both - a bit of a surprise as I'd been led to believe that the seal was normally only bonded to the scuttle panel, making removal easy...

In the end I settled for working the scuttle panel out on its own, leaving the seal in place. I then carefully separated the seal from the windscreen with some gentle prising and encouragement from a sharp craft knife, cleaned everything up, and RTV'd the rubber strip back to the scuttle panel. Job done, I thought.



Cleaned up:



Turns out the seal was bonded to the windscreen for a very good reason - when you slide the scuttle panel into position, the rubber seal makes good contact with the outer edges of the windscreen but the centre portion stands proud by about 10mm or so. Then when you tighten the nuts on the wiper hubs, the scuttle panel gets pulled even further out of position (tilted towards front of car), pulling the seal even further away from the windscreen... I'm no expert in fluid mechanics, but I suspect water would be able to force its way through a 20-30mm gap between the screen and rubber trim

Has anyone had this problem before, and if so, is there a fix that doesn't involve bonding the rubber to the glass? It would be nice to be able to remove/refit the scuttle panel without too much hassle... It looks as though the curvature of the scuttle panel doesn't quite match that of the windscreen, and is made worse by the position of the wiper mechanism pulling the scuttle panel further out of alignment. Is there any scope for changing the angle of the wiper mechanism so that it doesn't pull the panel out of position?

[8ball_Rob]

Thanks John, I figured others must have encountered this problem before but couldn't find anything through forum/google searching. Sorting the scuttle panel seal is no.1 on my to-do list this weekend, can't risk taking it out when there's any clouds in the sky until I get it watertight

I think careful bending of the wiper arm brackets will be my best shot - if I can tilt them upwards a fraction (i.e. towards the horizontal) that should bring the top edge of the rubber trim back towards the windscreen, and ought to raise the wiper linkage slightly so hopefully shouldn't catch on the airbox.

[8ball_Rob]

dvs_dave said:

You've got it the wrong way round. The rubber seal should only be bonded to the screen, not the scuttle panel. The scuttle panel then just slides under the rubber seal.

Hi Dave - that's interesting, I take it this is how yours is configured? Everything I've seen previously suggests that the 'correct' way to fit the rubber trim is to fix it to the scuttle panel, and then just bond the ends to the windscreen - for example, see the instructions on the TVR Parts website:

http://tvr-parts.com/tvr-parts/part-details/tvr-v1...

I have to say, the configuration you describe would seem to make better sense - at least that way you guarantee a watertight seal between the screen and the rubber. The fit between the rubber and the scuttle panel is presumably less critical. Provided that the rubber lies on top of the fibreglass for the whole length of the panel, water should just run down off the rubber and onto the panel as intended.

Does your rubber trim have the same cross-section as the one shown on the TVR Parts website (which is the same as mine), and if so, how easy is it to slot the edge of the scuttle panel back into the channel on the bottom edge of the rubber strip?

[8ball_Rob]

All helpful comments, cheers guys - there's clearly more than one way to skin a cat, as the saying goes!

The panel seems to be out of shape by quite some way, so I've gone with the option of using adhesive to bond the rubber to both the panel and the windscreen to ensure a good seal. At first I tried using RTV on both edges, but as soon as I tightened the nuts that hold the scuttle panel down it promptly ripped the RTV and pulled the trim away from the glass again... That was a waste of a couple of hours

I'm now using evostick 'serious glue' to join the rubber to the screen. I haven't found an effective way of holding the rubber in place while the glue sets (tape isn't strong enough, and anything you put on top of the rubber to weight it down just slides/rolls off). I've gone with the low-tech solution of glueing short sections at a time and holding it in place while the adhesive sets enough to be able to let go without the rubber springing back away from the glass (15-20 mins). It's a bit of a labour of love, but seems to be holding so far (touch wood) and I've only got one 6" section left to go...

[8ball_Rob]

Finally finished the job



Next time I need to remove the scuttle panel, I'll see if I can carefully prise the panel out from the rubber strip while leaving it fixed to the windscreen. I could then try refitting using Dave's method of just slotting the panel back into the rubber trim without any adhesive, which would be much more convenient - I don't fancy having to repeat this process every time the scuttle panel needs to come off...