New boot seal - which way?

[craigb]

Possibly a stupid question, but finally got a load of bits from Autohaus, including a nice new 'Meyle' boot/trunk seal. So having had a previous botcher stuff up a good seal on my car (had the soft lip bit stuck to the bottom of the gutter!), I want to get it right. So I am smart enough to work out that the soft lip must come into contact with the boot lid, and I am pretty sure that the lip side faces in, or put another way, water off the back window can run into the gap under the boot liid and run along the 'gutter' or the base of the rubber seal - that doesn't sound real good but hope someone knows what I mean.

I am also pretty sure that the two joins are at either side of the very rear of the car. On this seal there is a slightly different profile between most of the seal and the strip between the joins, with that shorter bit seeming to have less curve. I sat it in place and slowly closed the lid while watching and it seems to make sense because it is the only part where the boot seal is coming down and then pulls the seal down with it. Also by having less curve, it should be a firmer seal in the place where you really want to make sure that the negative pressure behind the car doesn't help exhaust gas in.

Hope that is a little clearer than mud but I reckon I could sit here trying to work out ways to say this and it still wouldn't be any clearer! Hopefully someone is familiar with all this and can work it out.

[TJ 450]

The boot (trunk) seal should be installed like this:




Tim

[craigb]

Thank you Tim. Can you tell where the joins are in the rubber?

[oscar]

Craig, I was a bit confused when you talked about the 2 joins.  No idea how old mine is on the 350 or what brand but it's the only one I've removed before and only appears to have one join which is below the lock and the rubber has a uniform cross section throughout it's length.   It'll be interesting to hear if anyone else has the same as yours, or mine.  I might have a cheaper generic replacement.  From what you're saying it sounds reasonable that if there's two joins and a length with a different cross section that it should go along the trailing edge of the boot, or at least that's what I'd do.

[TJ 450]

I only remember their being one join and on my cars, it's in the corner just above the LH taillight. IMHO it would be better to have the join in the centre where the latch is. I couldn't say if that was the original location for it, as I'm sure the seals have been out at some stage..

Tim

[craigb]

Thanks for the replies. Seal went on nicely and seems to work.

For the record, in case someone else is fitting one of these Meyle seals, There are 2 joins and when fitted they nicely occur on the corners at the ends of the straight bit at the very back. As I said before (and I should have photographed it) there is a slight but visible difference in the seal profile for that bit across the back. Now fitted, it does make sense since most of the seal  has a flat surface that squashes onto the seal and therefore you wouldn't want that accidentally bending the wrong way and I would say hence the extra curve on the seal profile. At the back, as the boot comes down it is in effect wiping over the face of the seal and therefore no chance of it bending the wrong way, so i guess they made it straighter to apply a little more pressure.