Window Screen Leak Repair

P. Guess wrote:

I have recently removed various paint and body blisters from both lower corners of the front and rear windows. The water seems to come at it from behind the seal and sit over time. No damage to the interior.

I seem to have corrected each corner of the seal where it had in places pulled out from the chrome by as much as a 1/4 inch.(with Super Glue).

I places the rubber at the glass is less than tight, without signs of major degradation to the seal in general.

I am about to go around everything with a clear silicone, modelling syringe, steady hand, and much trepidation, (silicone is the start of that downward spiral that ends in duct tape).

Any better sealing solutions? I sense that I would like to hit the seel at the glass and the body, but with what???

Under/behind the rubber seals is a void/cavity. Water gets in and sits. Rusting results. I also tried sealing around the seal with silicone to no avail This past summer I carefully pulled out the rubber seal, sprayed in an anti rust agent, let it dry, and filled the empty cavity with black silicone. This way there is no place for the water to penetrate. So far so good. Be very careful pulling out the seal because it may be fused to the paint around the window and peel off some paint. This happened to me in one spot. In fact don't remove the whole seal. Pull it out till you get close to a seam then start forcing in your silicone and reinsert the seal behind your bead of silicone. Make sure you have enough silicone in the cavity so that the seal forces some out. It can be a semi-messy job. Keep paper toweling at hand.

Use Loctite Permatex flowable silicon, as sold for windshields, and apply with a disposable (3cc) hypodermic syringe. The needle should be about 1mm internal diam with the sharp bit ground off. Load the syringe from the rear and then upend to let the bubbles rise to the needle. Do not apply in very hot weather as the silicon will not have time to flow into the crevice before it hardens. If you make a mess, and you will the first time, let it dry for a couple of days and then scrape it off. On about the third or fourth attempt it will start to look almost factory. If your not on the needle program and need to salvage the syringe, let the silicon harden and then poke it out with wire. BTW electrical tape is so much classier than duct tape.