Gap between header seal and hard top after replacing the seal

OdinsRoar

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Tupelo Mississippi
Hi all I am not sure whats going on. I replaced my header seal on my 2000 tj Thursday night and no matter how i remount the top there is a gap between the seal on the windshield top and the hard top. Is this normal was my old seal just that bad?

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It looks like the seal might be slightly too long creating slack in the middle.
 
I don't know how those seals attach in there but it just looks like it isn't in the hard top correctly. Mine doesn't dangle like that even when the hard top is off, I don't think it has anything to do with how the top is on the Jeep.
 
Is that seal a Chinese knock off or a OEM replacement ?
I have heard of knock offs not fitting properly.
The OEM replacement that I installed was modified (AC generation) from the original in that it was a different rubber material, thicker and had a larger lip where the soft top seated and the lip seated further down on the windshield header.
When I installed the OEM replacement for my '01 soft top; I made sure the plastic locating pins were seated properly, the side tabs were flipped over the surround and that I cleaned the windshield header surface thoroughly before installing the seal; since there was double sticky backed tape that needed to be seated in a certain way to ensure the soft top header seated properly.

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Can anyone give me a link to the oem replacement? I bought fairchild from 1a auto but apparently it must be wrong. I also order a and installed a Fairchild cowl seal is it going to cause problems also?
 
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I had a leak that deposited water on the floor boards saturating the carpet and I could not locate the leak after numerous attempts until I replaced the header seal with the OEM seal.
 
I had a leak that deposited water on the floor boards saturating the carpet and I could not locate the leak after numerous attempts until I replaced the header seal with the OEM seal.

Can you send me pictures of the corners or your seal please? I wonder if i didnt pull it far enough over
 
I was looking at the pictures of my jeep this morning and it looks like i might have caused my own issues looks like i didn't pull the seal far enough around to the door which might have caused my issue.
 
I was looking at the pictures of my jeep this morning and it looks like i might have caused my own issues looks like i didn't pull the seal far enough around to the door which might have caused my issue.

Sounds like what I was describing earlier...
Investigate further and let us know how you make out.
 

I think you mentioned the first one was Fairchild brand, I had bad luck with a set of their full door seals, for the record. While they looked correct and the plastic pins lined up with all the holes in the door shell, the seal's features were not formed properly or made of the correct rubber compound. I think they actually leaked worse than the damaged factory seal.
 
Hi all I am not sure whats going on. I replaced my header seal on my 2000 tj Thursday night and no matter how i remount the top there is a gap between the seal on the windshield top and the hard top. Is this normal was my old seal just that bad?

I'm actually having this same issue today. I bought the Fairchild from Summit. The main length of the seal is about 1/4" deeper than it is near the corners, which causes that overhang and gap. (See first pic here.)

I have now tried to install it three times, taking different approaches. I even scraped off the original adhesive to apply new 3M VHB tape where the original was losing its grip from all my meddling.

tempImageNAAK3z.png

New seal seems to have fixed my problem it was made completely different than the first one

Did you buy the OEM one? (Edit: I see you did.)
 
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