Should there be rivets holding the long rubber door gasket in a GTS?

I am replacing the long (4.8 m) rubber door gasket that runs across the back of the GTS roof, down the rear of the door openings, across the bottom of the door openings and a few centimeters back up the front (Ferrari Part Number 61705500).

On my car, there are three pop rivets holding the gasket in place at the bottom rear bend of each of the door openings. They are nicely installed, but I question whether they are just non-factory “upgrades”.

Are these rivet supposed to be there or is the entire gasket just friction fit?

 

No rivets. It should be installed such that the rubber is pressed back into that curve so it really cant come loose there. People cut the rubber then install it and that never goes well. One problem area is the vertical part right at the top of door by the window sill but even that just pushes on.

 

Nice and clear response. Thanks.

The "People cut the rubber then install it ..." comment begs another question:

Currently, my gasket runs up the front of the door opening to the level of the bottom of the front boot latch. At that point, the gasket abuts Part Number 60609100 "Weather Strip, Door Opening" which has a different profile. Is this the proper place to terminate the gasket?

The reason why I ask is that the replacement gasket I received is a full 2 meters longer than what is currently installed in the car. I could run it a long way up the front of the door openings if this were appropriate.

I may as well get it right.

 

The 2 pieces butt about half way up the door on the front edge.

 

Mmmmm don't know if they are supposed to be there but they're there on my 86 GTS.

 

There are four rivets in the edge that the weatherstripping covers. You have to cut little wedges so the rubber can go over the rivets. They don't go through the stripping.

 

My new gasket was also very long. I went ahead and ran it up the front of the door and sealed it to the gasket that runs along the top of the windshield. May not be correct, but makes sense to not have the extra seams. Now the whole gasket is just one piece.
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That's how we did it. And that's how it was originally on my 85 QV

 

Question: Where did you source the door gasket from Brian?

 

T Rutlands and GT Car Parts sell it by the foot.

 

It sure seems like a bunch of cars have rivets. It must be a common fix for the "installed too tight" problem. I am going to try to do it without rivets.

I can't see why there would be rivets in that spot for any other reason.

I certainly have enough gasket length to run it to the tops of the doors like you have. For the sake of concours purity (or whatever), I am probably going to retain my front gaskets and terminate the long rear one near the bottom third of the door, which is where they terminate now and seem to be stock.

Yeah, I surveyed all the usual suspects. Everyone pretty much sells the stuff. The $/£ exchange rate favors the USD right now, so I added the gasket to an order I was placing (for ignition parts) from Superformance UK. It was initially backordered, so they have the new stock in. It even came in a yellow box with horsies on it.

 

'79 GTS. My car also had rivets, but they were not to hold the gasket, they were to hold the inner trim panel. The black trim panel is hard to see in the pics, look at the red arrow. The rivets were under the gasket. I replaced them with screws just to make removal easier... I know, I know, but it's my car.
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Interesting. My carpet panels are just friction fit. I'll pull this all apart when I repace the gasket (probably this weekend) and check for holes, rivets, etc.

This is really a minor repair to the car, so I'm not going to get too obsessive about it, but I do like to do things right.

 

I'm not familiar with your car, my car has a vinyl covered aluminum trim part behind the area in question. Yours may not have it.

 

Interesting. I have an aluminum trim part that runs up under the seat belt, but it is carpeted.

 

I installed my new gasket on Saturday.

Rifledriver said it already, but I can state unequivocally that the rivets are not factory. (And I "doubt" all that sloppy silicone sealant on my old gasket was either.)

Now I know; doing that vertical part at the top is as easy as wrestling a bear. Whew.

 

Rivets in the corners are a workaround for not fitting the seal properly.

These seals shrink with age so its essential they are fitted in a compressed state, so as its fitted, push it back onto itself while going along. If not, it will shrink and pull itself out of the corners.

 

The GTS rubber went through a few different versions as Ferrari was trying to get the cars watertight and to stop "whistling". Some versions had the rubber go all the way from top of windshield frame all the way to the other top side. Other versions stopped before the A pillar rubber got to the door will. Yet another version stopped at the lower forward corner of door opening. Depends on year, and if the early cars were updated with as per a service bulletin (#90-1) or were updated later as the 61705500 was a different rubber profile than earlier versions and was made to go the full length (~26' IIRC).

 

Also the rubber along the top of the windscreen underwent a major revision. People who were in the dealers at the time remember disgruntled customers who found that in the wet, when braking all the gathered water on the roof would cascade down onto their laps, and they had to get out of the car looking like they had wet themselves which was not a cool look!

A very tricky retrofit was introduced of seal 60607900 which involved adding an angle bracket and fiberglass surgery on the targa top. That worked and the seal stayed unchanged throughout the 308 and 328. We make them and I have stock if anyone needs one.

 

Very interesting information. Thank you for posting.

That explains why my new gasket came with so much extra length. I could have, and should have, run the long gasket all the way to the tops of the windshield. Oh well, my front door gaskets were in good shape, so at least it looks like it did back in 1983.

I compressed the gasket as much as I could as I installed it and did not use rivets (...or glue).

 

The gasket on my 308 is deteriorated at the molded corner around the hole that the peg on the roof panel goes into. Any feed back from people who have changed out this gasket would be appreciated . Is the gasket one piece running from driver door sill to passenger door sill or can you just cut out molded corner around hole and replace it? Where can you buy?

 

This is what the seal along the top looks like which would indicate where it ends up, a couple of inches down the A pillar.
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I also have a 78 GTS. The gasket is different from the one above, (post by Andyww). My corners sections were in bad shape. The "skin" of the rubber was missing in parts, rough inner sections were showing and where it met the center section it had shrunk in diameter.

My goal was to smooth out the rubber, increase the smaller diameter section so it would be the same as the center section and paint it to look presentable.

I wanted to be able to put a flexible compound that would allow me to "work" the material and sculpt the compound. I tried Permatex flexible rubber compound, but it wouldn't smooth out enough and could not be worked. It did allow me to build it up a bit however. Next I tried the "spray rubber in a can" like on the commercial, but i used another brand. This was better in that I could build it up and, when dried, it could be sanded. Lots of tedious work, but slowly I got it fairly smooth. I finished up the repair with SEM Trim Paint, a satin black paint.

There is a new product called Sugru, which is a moldable, silicone putty. It can be worked and smoothed with water. I used it to repair a hole in the black plastic of the tail light lens and it worked very well. It hardens in about 24 hours. If I did it again I would start with this product. My advice is to buy some products and work on a scrap piece of rubber to get the feel.

Here is before and after picture. I wanted it to look decent and it is much better. If I did it again, I would use something that can be sanded or shaped right from the beginning which would allow the rubber to remain a nice circular shape. Mine turned out a bit bumpy, due to the limited workability of the Permatex Flexible Rubber Compound. The spray rubber was much better to get the final shape.
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+1 on the sugru

 

It seems your car managed to miss the factory modification to the later seal. There are likely very few cars out there with the older seal.