Well I was back at the Red Devil again tonight after work. Tonights assignment/goal was to get the rear gate apart and discover what is wrong inside. The rear window definitely had an alignment issue. One of the guide track wheels was missing and a washer was substituted with a massive fail ensuing. The window side guides were completely trashed and worn out. Broken glass was still imbedded in the tracks and bottom of the gate. The window down mechanism was broken off and laying in the bottom. As you see it is how it was when I disassembled it.
Home made guide track wheel. Massive fail.
Good tool for removing inside and outside weather strips. the outside one was like fresh chips. It crumbled. I will reuse it and add a brush seal.
The top of the gate has the normal cracks. I will fasten the out skin to the inner reinforcement before I reassemble the gate.
The side glass track guides are scrap and I will rebuild them. the ones that you buy from LMC have a life expectancy of a few months if you use the vehicle.
I dug out all the felt and wire brushed the track and channel with a wire wheel on the cordless drill.
The clean track at top with the rust thru. Won't matter the bottom is still solid enough to retain the proper gap for my replacement rubber track. I will cover the rubber Trim Lok seal in my next post. Complete with pictures.
A friend sent me this picture. I designed this wrap back in 2013 for my new 2014 Silverado before it arrived. It was an all brown truck and I was going to have the truck completely wrapped in the 3 color camouflage. Great idea. I sent the pictures to the local graphic design shop. They wanted $4K to do it. That was a deal breaker. It would have been cool. I did get the black wheels and that was a good as it got. I really don't think the wrap would hold up to 5 years of solar UV abuse. And they would not guarantee the removal process to go smoothly after 90 days. WOW. 90 days to have a new camouflage truck. What a Deal.
