door noise

[FHernand]

scargo, what year car are you speaking about?

[super9064]

" The whistle and wind rush from the A pillar and front of the window frame on my '72 911 coupe has always been one of the most prominent noises in the car, at any speed above 50mph, even with new later type door seals. I wanted to try and eliminate this so I can hear the noises we are supposed to, like the engine, and make the car more acceptable for long distance high speed running, especially with the wife on board!

This must be a common problem so I thought I would share the steps I went through to achieve a 95% effective fix.

1. Fit later tube type door seals rather than the original lip seal. (£16 per side from Roger Bray etc)

2. Plug every hole in the door, other than the drain holes, with appropriate grommets. Mirror mountings, window frame fixings, and paint drain hole. This is the Porsche recommended fix, the following is the extra bit.

3. Make a thin rubber wedge to smooth the transition from the door inner panel to the window frame and superglue in place. The seal is never going to work on the original step condition.

4. Cut a small slit in the inner side of the door seal tube about 6 inches above the top of the door panel and insert a 12 inch length of suitable diameter plastic tubing into the seal to cover the area between door panel and window frame. Lubricate with brake cleaner or similar and the tube should slip straight in. Glue the hole back together. This supports the seal locally around the problem area.

5. Obtain a pair of headlamp to body seals. (About £5 per pair) This just happens to be the correct section to form a secondary door seal. Cut the headlamp seal at the join to make a single length. With the door closed run a pencil or chalk along the window frame onto the A pillar and front of the roof. Open the door and superglue the headlamp seal just inside this line with the lip pointing towards the door frame. I have run my seals about 50mm into the roof. The seal will run all the way down the A pillar and onto the vertical section of the A pillar just inside the wing.

6. When you close the door the new seal should just lip onto the window frame and effectively close off this area. Clearly this depends on the tolerance of particular cars and window frames, but seemed to work fine on mine.

The secondary seal was the final improvement that nailed it. This all but removes the noise and makes the car suddenly appear significantly more refined and much less tiring to drive. After over 10 hours in the car this weekend I really appreciated it.

It seems to work up to 110 mph. Don't know about higher speeds because the car is so unstable above 100mph that my nerve goes! Guess we know why they started sprouting spoilers...

I'll post some pictures if anyone would like some, don't wish to slow down the site unnecessarily.

_____________________________

Gary
1972 2.4T "

[Tom F.]

Adding the felt seals from SC and later cars will help, too, but you will have to drill holes in the A pillar and roof.

[Esposito]

The factory installed small pieces of foam under the weatherstrip at that point.
When I fit up door frames I do a paper check to see if it needs to be adjusted.
Espo

[jloucks388]

I doubled weather-stripped my A-pillar using the fat half of a new tube -- noise gone. A slight trade-off between appearance and noise reduction.