Outer Window Weatherseals

[Parklife]

A part of me knows the answer to this already and is afraid to ask, but:

While attempting to replace the outer window weather seals, I'm noticing that the trim on my car is one molded piece — just a thin strip of metal with some flocked rubber molded on top of it.  All the instructions say to remove the old weatherstrip rubber from a stainless-steel channel and slide in the new ones, but there's the rub: With the pieces on the car, there are no channels for the replacement weatherstrips to slide into, nor clips that were holding the trim in place. The replacement rubber piece is on the left, the trim that was installed on my car on the right. They're not even the same width:

This suspicion I have — that I'm not dealing with the correct pieces on my car — is doubly borne out by the way the trim is attached to the door.  There appear to be four large, perhaps 8mm or so, holes in the door.  From my understanding, there should be four push-in clips that retain the stainless weatherstrip frame to the door using these holes, and one screw holding it in place at the end.  As you can see in the next picture, none of those were used on my car.  Instead, it has tiny holes drilled into the door frame where teeny self-tapping flathead screws were used instead:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it does appear that what I ended up with on my car are something entirely different that the previous owner just kind of slapdash adapted to fit an Avanti door, right?

It appears that I'll need a pair of the original Avanti weatherstrip channels. Which leads me to my next question, then:  Does anyone have a pair of the original weatherstrip channels they would like to sell, or suggestions as to what could be substituted as an assembly to replace them?  The rubber, as you can see above, has cracked and torn off in several places so I can't even feign ignorance and put the old ones back in.

 

 

[Kodjo]

I agree with your findings. The new plasic/rubber piece should slide into the metal part.

The matal part should stay on the car. The old plastic/rubber can slide out and the new one in.

 

[Dunkin]

I just went through this on my car, I agree also. I do not know if those metal retainers are available.

Edited August 30, 2022 by Dunkin

[Parklife]

Thanks, @Dunkin and @Kodjo.  From what I can tell, this car was last restored in the 90s, back when the standards for 'restored' were a lot more, shall we say, freewheeling than they are now, so that makes sense.

[brad]

What year is your Avanti? Later cars in the 80s had the type you show that was on your car. They are a bear to curve properly to fit well.

[Parklife]

17 hours ago, brad said:

What year is your Avanti? Later cars in the 80s had the type you show that was on your car. They are a bear to curve properly to fit well.

It's an early '63 - it looks like the car was last restored in '93 so that makes sense that the later trim pieces may still have been available NOS at the time.