Word to the wise regarding 1995 and 1996 doors

[Winston M.]

All of a sudden from out of nowhere there is a crack in the outer skin of my driver's door at the very top rear corner of the
door. It started just to the rear of the window glass run on the top edge and is spreading vertically down the side of the door.
I'm so mad right now i'd like to set fire to the car and collect the insurance on it.......this is on a car with 1000 original miles on it.
Thanks GM for building a stinking pile of crap. Best I can figure my 95 Indy Pace car just depreciated about ten thousand dollars
overnight. It is my belief that this happened due to the very hard rubber weatherstrip in the door jamb that the corner of the outer
door skin hits when you close the door. Has anybody else ever seen this happen or am I the unluckiest guy on the planet?

[Ed N.]

Re: Driver's door cracking on my 95 Convertible!

All of a sudden from out of nowhere there is a crack in the outer skin of my driver's door at the very top rear corner of the
door. It started just to the rear of the window glass run on the top edge and is spreading vertically down the side of the door.
I'm so mad right now i'd like to set fire to the car and collect the insurance on it.......this is on a car with 1000 original miles on it.
Thanks GM for building a stinking pile of crap. Best I can figure my 95 Indy Pace car just depreciated about ten thousand dollars
overnight. It is my belief that this happened due to the very hard rubber weatherstrip in the door jamb that the corner of the outer
door skin hits when you close the door. Has anybody else ever seen this happen or am I the unluckiest guy on the planet?

Can you post a photo of it. Not really following you. Either way, sounds like it could be repaired.

"It is my belief that this happened due to the very hard rubber weatherstrip in the door jamb that the corner of the outer
door skin hits when you close the door."

If that would be the case, it would happen on both sides.

Untitled.jpg

[Winston M.]

Re: Driver's door cracking on my 95 Convertible!

In your picture, turn the arrow to where it is straight up and down with the point of the arrow right at the tippy top of the door and halfway between the end of the window glass run and the rear edge of the door. That is where my vertical crack has started. The right door of my car barely hits the hard rubber weatherstrip in the jamb whereas on the left door it hits it very hard and has to compress it much more in order for the door to close.

Can you post a photo of it. Not really following you. Either way, sounds like it could be repaired.

"It is my belief that this happened due to the very hard rubber weatherstrip in the door jamb that the corner of the outer
door skin hits when you close the door."

If that would be the case, it would happen on both sides.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]110654[/ATTACH]

[Winston M.]

Re: Driver's door cracking on my 95 Convertible!

The first thing I am going to do is grind out that hard rubber block in the door jamb to relieve the pressure on the door skin and pray that the crack
doesn't spread, otherwise cubic dollars will have to be spent in order to make it look like it did before this happened. In my opinion fixing it will entail completely gutting the driver's door to an empty shell, removing it from the car, repairing the crack, then painting it, applying new pace car decals and reinstalling the door then reassembling it.......many many hours of work and many cubic dollars, and of course the car's perfect original paint will be history.

[Winston M.]

Re: Driver's door cracking on my 95 Convertible!

Anybody out there with a Corvette like mine needs to look at how hard the rubber block in the jamb is pushing on the corner of the door
and grind out the rubber in the block to relieve the tremendous pressure being exerted on the outer door skin....a word to the wise!

[Winston M.]

Word to the wise regarding 1995 and 1996 doors

Last February, I shut the driver's door on my 1000 original mile 95 Pace Car convertible and looked down
and discovered the very top rear corner of the outer door skin had started to crack......it looked perfect until I closed the door
in February. After studying the problem, I figured out that this happened because Chevrolet for some reason installed a hard rubber
block onto the bottom of the weatherstrip that seals the rear edge of the window, and the top rear corner of the door slams into
this hard rubber block every time you close the door. The very top rear corner of the outer skin extends past the inner door structure
that it is bonded to, and so the hard rubber block is pushing very hard on the thin fragile outer door skin every time you close the door, and finally the fiberglass couldn't take this abuse anymore thus it started to crack at the very top of the door about 3/4 inch
from the rear edge. On my car right now it isn't very noticeable but it will be if it spreads any further. What I did on my car is take some diagonal wire cutters and trimmed back the hard rubber block so that the outer door skin doesn't touch it. I did this on both
sides of the car. I went back and looked at pictures I took of my car when I bought it a year ago and I had taken a shot of the open
driver's door from the inside and I could see that the outer door skin had already cracked on the inside and the crack had not yet
spread to the outside of the skin. If I had noticed the crack on the inside of the door I could have removed the hard rubber block
last summer and the outside of the door would have never cracked. The earlier C4's do not have this hard rubber block on the weatherstrip...they must have been trying to cut down on body squeaks.....I'm not sure what year they started using the hard rubber block but I know 95's and 96's have it. If you have one of these cars with the hard rubber block in the door jambs, go out
in the garage right now and cut the damn things off so you won't be crying in your beer like me. I just wish someone had warned me about this problem before the crack spread to the outside!

[Mark E.]

Re: Word to the wise regarding 1995 and 1996 doors

Winston,

Thanks for sharing this; I haven't heard about this before. Is this hard rubber block unique to convertibles?

Could your car have been subjected to a history of door slamming? I wonder if this could be a contributing factor to the panel damage. I've always cringed at door slammers as they wreaked damage upon window alignment, regulators, motors, speakers and latches.

Be aware a common ailment with C4 door slammng is for the side glass alignment to gradually rock backward, causing the top rear corner to scrape the C-pillar (coupes) when the door is opened or closed. With convertibles, it just causes a poor seal with the top.