Chris: Hey guys, Chris from ClassicVWBugs.com and I have got a tip for you today, just got back this 1956 Beetle that we've just painted and I'm putting it back together. We have a lot of questions about the rear engine seal and how to install. I have read online a few variations on how to do it, but the way I do it seems to work pretty well and I really haven't had much of a problem.
One thing I want to point out is if you're painting your car, make sure to take out the old seal because if you don't take out the old seal, chances are your body guy might not have a good tape guy and you might want to painting that seal and plus the old seals are usually pretty crusty to begin with so --
What you got to want to do is before you paint it rip out the old seal, and then get like a utensil like this kind like a putty knife that's bent, and you go on to rip that seal out and when you get in here kind of lift the channel a little bit by prying it up all the way round the rear engine area here. Because you really don't want to open this up and you know a lot of times in general these channels are pretty bent or they are rusted. So they do sell these channels, you could buy them in the world new pieces on but some times you know, the old ones are pretty good. So just want to kind of open them up a little bit so when you get the car back they could, the seal could fit in a lot easier, so basically this is what I did, I just pried it up.
You don't want to go too much because basically what you want to do is just kind of slip the seal in. Now some people will tell you to start the end of the seal from the top here and feed it all the way down into the channel and that doesn't always work especially when you see close here, how wrinkly these channels are and that seal, even if you use silicon or something that seal is still got to jam up and it is not go to slide in too well, so like I said before you go to painted it you want to pry them. If you start prying it up after you got the car painted, it's a good possibility you might start chipping this paint.
So basically I just use this type of knife and I lined up the seal and basically I just start just pushing it in really, if it's little stubborn I might get some silicon and you know to help it and then basically from the corner areas here where it ends, where it splits; you get another screw driver and you push that down to hold that into place. So you got to take a screw driver like this and kind of bang that down, that's why you might need your touchup paint to touch that up as you might chip that.
So let's do on to that all the way round that channel, okay, so you can see as I did it all the way around and all you need is that putty knife to just start pushing it in. It should slip in pretty well, if you've opened it up prior. Now basically you want to do the same thing for the front of the hood, the front of the car underneath the front hood causing basically the same way. So that seems to work for me, I really don't have any problems, with chipping the paint as you can see and it just kind of feeds in and just take your time and you should be alright. Okay, got any questions, chris@classicVWbugs.com, or you can visit my website www.classicVWbugs.com.
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