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Old 10-03-2016, 09:06 PM   #351
paintman
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Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: washington NJ
Posts: 766
Re: 46 pickemup in NJ "the Rebuild"

Since I have been a self employed painter caulking baseboards and door frames for the last 25 years, I figured I should be able to run the silicone around the frame and glass.

I'm sure the glass shop would have done it different, but here's how a painter does it. Not wanting to have it look like it was put on with a sling shot. I ran masking tape around the inside of the glass leaving about a 1/8 inch of glass showing. This would allow for the silicone to get down inside the chanel and also get a grip on some of the glass. Beacause the frame was already painted I tape it as well.
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then it was time to shot the silicone. I had to heat it up in the oven because a conventional caulk gun just wouldn't budge the material. Kind of hard to see in the pic but once I shot the bead I smoothed it out with my fingure while trying to press the silicone down into the chanel. Once done, I peeled the tape off and it looked great!
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I was going to post a pic of how good the frame looked once I got it back on the truck, but I ran into a snag. After reading countless threads about how great Steele rubber products were, I pulled the trigger and dropped $85 on a new gasket. BIG MISTAKE!!!!!!!! As soon as I opened the box I could see there was a difference in the size of the gasket. The outer most flange that makes the actual seal was nearly 1/4 smaller than the gasket I took off the truck.
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Even though I knew the new gasket would not fill the entire chanel on the truck, I figured since I had nothing better to do, I would put the new gasket on the frame and bolt it to the truck just to see how bad it looked. Pretty much, it looked worse than some of the stuff that swirls around in a toilet!
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This is exactly why I didn't want to drop $600 on a new frame or a one piece glass. Because it seems like everything you buy now a days is nothing but crap! I think for now I will just clean up the old gasket (its in to good of shape to be the original) and re-use it.
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