Drivers (half) door hard to close - adjusting the rubber seal?

[Bammo68]

Recently added a hardtop to the '99TJ and its exacerbated a problem I already had with the softtop - the drivers side upper door half is hard to close and the rubber seal seems to be getting in the way.

Soft top is an aftermarket replacement I would estimate to be 3-4 years old. Rubber seals are in good condition but weren't trimmed properly so I suspect the whole top wasnt installed properly when purchased given other issues I found. PAX door works fine, though occasionally need two attempts to get it to seat.

I took the canvas off the upper door wire frame and discovered the bottom of the frame was badly rusted - only rust on the whole jeep. Cleaned all that off and treated it and carefully reassembled the canvas over the wire frame paying attention to the tension and the velcro positioning. Alas, no difference.

If I try to close the door normally, the rubber seal prevents the top half from closing flush (and the bottom half too). I can sort of stuff the rubber back with my finger tips and it will seat the door properly but you can only do that from the outside.

Comparing the drivers and passenger half doors the drivers seal seems to be angled a bit more so it catches on the frame of the top and folds over when the door closes but no matter how much I try to realign it , it wont stay put.

Any thoughts?

 

[red02tj]

You may need to slightly bed the wire frame out so that it closers flush. Do not bend it against the half door, that’s a great way to crack you door panel. For mine, I drilled 3 holes in a fence post and used that to adjust the lean.

 

[Bammo68]

I've tried my best to get the drivers door to close flush with no success. Have bent the top half of the door frame, have removed the canvas skin and carefully tensioned it. The issue isnt so much the top of the door frame sitting in the wrong spot as the rubber seal being "twisted" in place so its facing "out". Will take a photo tomorrow but if I compare it to the photo above the part of the rubber seal that goes into the gap is laying flat against the canvas and so just gets caught in the door frame and bows the window out instead of sealing. If you poke it with your fingers you can make it all go in nicely but it wont stay like that.

If you manually stretch/rotate the canvas the seal sort of aligns properly but as soon as you release the pressure it pops back flat again.

The drivers door is really bad and wont seal properly, the passenger door is almost perfect and just has one small spot that sits like this but its not enough to make the door hard to close.

The issue was a bit annoying when using the softtop as it doesnt provide for a solid seal. With my new hardtop the issue is x10 times worse as it stops you from closing the drivers door properly without slamming the daylights out of it.

Could it just be a faulty soft top upper?

 

[Bammo68]

Some photos of the issue. The photo with my fingers visible shows what happens if I manually rotate the top of the canvas - it aligns the rubber better and allows it to seat nicely against the hardtop frame but as soon as I remove my fingers it springs back into place.

 

[red02tj]

I used fishtape and ran 5/8th IN nylon rope in the rubber seal to give it more shape and stopped my leaking.