Wind Noise - Door Seals?
#21
12-27-2010, 12:41 PM
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Josh E ; Open the door full. Put a jack, like a motorcycle jack under the door close to the end. Jack the door up bending the hinges and where the hinges mount. By doing this the top hinge is bends in and the bottom hinge bends out slightly. Now when the door closes the top of the door where it seals will be closer to the door frame causing the rubber to compress more thus making a tighter seal. This worked for me on both doors but must be repeated occasionally as the doors get sprung again.
#23
12-27-2010, 01:04 PM
The designer of the hinge system should be fired, then shot. First there is no limit arm (like on most auto doors) to keep the door from bending the hinge outward when the door is forced opened beyond the limit the hinge itself will allow. When the door swings open hard, like when the wind catches it, the hinges bend away from the frame creating a new pivot point for the door. This is ever so slight but when extended to the top of the door it expands to about 1/4 inch. This in turn reduces the amount of pressure the door has on the rubber gasket causing air to leak in. When you take you Dodge to the dealer, they lie. The are very much aware of the design problem but will only adjust the strike system. Sometimes this helps slightly but is only temporary. Dodge wants you to go away and only come in with problems they can solve. It is suprising that since Dodge new about this problem from the begining, '04 model that they failed to fix it on future model. The service manager at Dodge did give me a tip on how to fix it myself which I tried and sure enough it worked. I read all the posts and suprisingly no one even thought of it. If you want the secret, Id be happy to share. Just contact me.
Either way, putting a jack under the end of your door to lift it up sounds to me like a recipe for bending the bottom of the door. The sheet metal portion of the lower door is (IMO) more likely to give away before the 1/4" steel hinges do but maybe if you did it and said it worked then it worked for you. I personally would not want to cave it the bottom part of my door. If anything I would by hinges if i think I have sag.
Yeah the doors are heavy most in almost every case of wind noise I have seen was cause either by bent doors at the top from something prying the door away from the body trying to either break in their own truck or someone else doing it maliciously. The other thing was the door seals that at the lower part towards the windshield would get torn from making contact with the door when closing. But they came out with replacement seals for that.
Aside from all of that, thank you for your tricks on how to seal a door if needed. Maybe it will help someone out
Last edited by weedahoe; 12-27-2010 at 01:06 PM.
