Air vent seals

[chuck]

Does anybody sell new seals for the air vent doors in the front footwells? Mine are leaking badly and the air coming out of those is cold in the winter and hot in the summer!

chuck

RQB-3553

[Gunslinger]

Either Myer's Studebaker or Nostalgic Motors should have what you want.

[Mel]

In Issue 170, I submitted an article regarding electrical circuits, etc., and also included a hint on these air vents. I had the same problem in mine as the fiberboard 'flaps' disintegrate over time. Basically, you can push the pivot rod holding the flap upward and the bottom of the setup (plastic tube?) downward and pull the bottom of the flap inward. (You'd have to do this anyway to replace the setup.) I then drilled the rivets out of the mount and used paperboard to fashion templates and then used the templates as guides to cut aluminum plates. I'm not sure of the gauge but the aluminum was 0.125" (1/8") thick. I then riveted the plates to the original mount rods. It took a bit of trial and error to get the templates right but, once I got them right, I cut the aluminum plates and they fit very snugly -- probably as snugly as the original and they will not disintegrate. I painted them black right before the last placement and painted the grill covers at the same time. I've been very pleased with them. As I recall, I believe the flaps are the same but the mount rods may be different; i.e., I used the same flap template for both sides. Good luck.

[chuck]

The fiberboard panels in mine were in decent shape so I cleaned the remains of the old foam seals off, Thompson's water sealed them, and then glued new seals to them. I found the seals at Studebaker International under "cowl seals"-even they didn't know what they were called when I talked to them though they knew they carried them! They are working fine now.

chuck

RQB-3553