The Simple Tricks to Install Your Classic VW Beetle Deck lid Seal

hey guys chrisan classic vwbug docomo question from a guy uh the other day he he gave me a call about his uh rear engine uh deck liid seal on his Beetle that he's restoring and uh I know I've talked about rear engine seals before but I just wanted to kind of go over a couple things with you guys so this is my 54 convertible Beatle that you guys see here um and I'm down here in Florida which is really nice weather right now um so here here's the seal we're talking about here this rear engine seal this is the u-shaped seal that basically goes down the body of the car down below the apron right and all the way back up now on the early Beatles they had a a wide seal here that you can see really nice wide seal and this is a good seal because at least it doesn't it really doesn't curl the other ones are known to curl and when you close the deck lid it's known to you know get caught under the deck lid and then it kind of doesn't look nice when you're out showing the car you kind of want the seal to look nice and flat like you see here and I'll show you another example on my 65 Beetle uh that has that later seal but you can find your seal I think on the samba.com there's a fellow there that sells this it's all you know correct it's got the right ribs on it and such for this period uh but to put these in the ideal way to do this is prior to paintt you got to get under this c channel here okay this is a c channel a lot of times these C channels are rusted out and you got to get new ones they do sell new C channels cip1.com Wolfsburg West jbugs they're all going to sell this uh c channel here this is where the seal cuts you know catches into uh you need to weld this on if you do not weld this on it's most likely going to come off just because this is a pretty strong piece of Steel when you get it uh and you will have to make the curvature here cuz they come straight of course in the box and when you buy them new so uh you're going to have to have your body guy weld these on and I know my body guy doesn't uh particularly like doing these uh but this seal if it is if you do have a good one on your car you got you're going to want to clean out the seat Channel inside take all of course all the rubber off and get in there with like a pick and you can you need to clean out that channel because if you don't and you go to the paint shop they're going to paint right over that they're not going to see that and then you're going to have you know junk in there and it's going to be problematic later when you got to put the seal in the other thing you want to do is open the channel a little bit so you get yourself like an Implement that can open this up you know a flat blade or something or or Bent Blade and uh spackle blade that kind of thing and open this channel up a bit open that se up so that seal can can get in there later when you after it's painted cuz you know when it's painted paint adds layers and it it's going to tighten up that that channel so trust me when it it could be really tough sometimes to get this seal in there uh so you want to open that channel up now the other thing too is you're going to want to lube this in here before trying to attempt to put the seal in now I know a lot of guys will tell you they start the seal say from the top of the channel and they feed it through the channel yeah that's all sounds good to do if your channel is really nice and clean if it's brand new and if you open that enough you know a lot of times if you're stuck and that channel is is closed now you got to you got to open that up after paint you could jeopardize cracking this Channel and you don't want that right so open that up and what I pretty much do is make get get this seal hot this flap here this seal let it sit out in the sun put a heat gun on it let it get nice and soft I actually will stretch it so I'll have one guy pull this way one guy pull this way and then I insert that into the channel there cuz that what that does is that'll thin out that bead that's on the end of the seal here okay so that's the way to install those things they can be they can be tough to do uh but uh that's the way I do it and I just I just feed it in as I go down the body trying to channel it through the c channel from say the top and then going all the way down and that's kind of tough I I haven't had much luck with that and then what you're going to want to do is usually there's a cut here on the Channel Once you have it in nice then what you do is with a block of wood and a hammer just nail that down so it holds it in place and also nail it down at the top the ends of it because you don't want this coming out okay so let me show you the other seal that I have and my other Beetle okay so here's my 65 Beetle and has the later seal in it so if you see this seal this is if you can take a look here you can see how kind of wavy they get um this is the thinner seal compared to the earlier seal that I showed you you could use this seal on an early Beetle if you do have that if you can't find those wider seals uh but same same deal here you know we just had to open the channel if you don't have this Channel or it's rotted out which is what this fell called me about he actually painted his car and it did not have the channel on the body to put the seal so what do you do do you go do you get the c channel do you buy that channel that metal strip and and weld it on or do you think practice iCal because if you're going if you're going to weld this channel on now now you got to paint now you got to paint you got to go through a whole painting scenario again and now you got to have to have your body guys match the paint you're most likely going to have to repaint the rear apron yes you could probably take this Fender off but you're still going to have to paint up in here so it's a little problematic that gets into you know a sketchy area there that should be done prior to paint if you need those channels replaced so what do you do well the Mexican beetles put the seal they got rid of this actually got rid of this Channel and they put the seal on the deck liet which to me is actually way better to put the seal on there and it's like a tubular seal a rubber tubular seal or a foam seal if I'm not mistaken uh guys correct me on that I haven't had a Mexican beetle in my possession but I've seen them at the car shows and how more practical that is when the Rubber seal is actually adhesed you know with adhesive on the the deck lid itself and if it's a tubular seal what is going to do then is when you close the deck lid it's going to then Squish and absorb into the body okay and and you know and just get nice and soft and press up against the body and that will actually seal way way better than these seals these seals and when you close this deck lid I don't know if you can see but that's not too terrible but you know generally speaking they do not seal the greatest there's going to be gaps probably in your Beetle when you put these seals on so this fell came into a situation where he didn't know what to do now if you're looking to be correct you're going to car shows or something and you want everything to look right then yeah you got to go with something like this but if you're using a daily driver or a tole car or just a you know car you just take out occasionally you don't care for certain things like correctness then that seal will work great um I do believe the VW places will sell these seals I think my guy in Connecticut Dave at bug City sells those seals and then they just either hook to the deck lid here or it's a self-adhesive uh backing that sticks to this uh correct me if I'm wrong guys I've never I've haven't uh applied this before um if you can't get that seal from the the vdub places you could go to AutoZone or Advanced Auto Parts and they have those weather strip seals with like the 3M Adhesive back that you can peel off and then stick onto the bottom of this deck liet and then when that marries down to the body that'll be a nice compression and actually seal the hood to the body as opposed to something like this you see how wavy this is and they're known for curling like this and getting not really sitting right you know they're kind of cheap you know in a way uh so that's that video guys if uh you have any questions uh you know pop it in the comments section below love to hear your thoughts and uh if you know if you get value out of this uh leave a like and you know subscribe all that kind of jazz and uh that's it guys hope you enjoyed that peace [Music]