Wagon Tailgate Door Seal

[kishy]

On account of recently coming into possession of a pretty good tailgate door seal, I am considering sending it to a manufacturer (Steele Rubber Products) to have them scan it and determine the feasibility of reproducing it. They have responded to me saying they are happy to take the seal to do this analysis.

Before I do this, I want to make sure I'm not shooting myself (or the rest of us) in any of our feet and hurting our chances of further consideration. e.g. if I send them this seal and they look at it and say "wow, that's really complex, what's the demand like for this part" and then determine our cars are worth 5 dollars and there are only 3 possibly interested buyers, they very well might blacklist the car from being considered entirely.

What I suppose I need from the community is:

• A rough idea of how many cars are currently in need of this seal, with buyers who would be willing to pay for a reproduction part. I'm guessing this thing won't be much under $200 if they do decide to make it.
• Has anyone previously sent in their seal to Steele Rubber for evaluation, and if so, what reasons were given to you at that time for why they didn't decide to move forward with it?
• Some examples of why the vehicle is a worthy case to make reproduction parts for. For example, recent BringATrailer listings for these cars selling for high dollars, and hopefully with the tailgate seal visibly destroyed in the photos.
• Does anyone happen to have a better condition seal than mine (see photos at link above) which is a better candidate to submit to them?

I'm not planning to bury the Steele Rubber guys in evidence before the seal is even in their hands, I just think it would be wise to have this sort of supporting information on-hand to use in conversation if it sounds like it isn't looking likely to be reproduced.

[Arquemann]

This kinda high dollar (and otherwise great condition) BAT listing came to mind:
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/19...wn-victoria-4/
Even on this one the top part of the seal looks to be mushed and it's splitting apart at a couple spots...
These vintage wagons seem to be rising in price every year.
Looking at a few other wagons all low miles show atleast some deformation and weathercracking on the tailgate seal.
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/19...-squire-wagon/
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/19...-squire-wagon/

[Kodachrome Wolf]

I'll absolutely pony up for one. I'd have a feeling with these cars starting to gain acceptance as classics, certain owners who want to make their cars as nice as possible would likely be willing to purchase a new seal.

[WagonMan]

I insured my 89 CP with Hagerty Insurance for $10K a year ago. They accepted my agreed value without even asking for pictures. I recently got a letter from them suggesting I raise the value to $15K. Wagons are becoming more of a collectors item for sure. WagonMan

[Tiggie]

I'll take one in the $200 range. Let me know if they need actual contact info.

This came up on one of the Facebook groups very recently. The user had a NOS one and was encouraged to share it with a reproduction company, but I suspect they have not. Daniel Carpenter makes LOTS of Mustang rubber bits and they are good. They might be a resource if Steele doesn't bite.

[kishy]

Thank you for the links and remarks.

To be clear, the $200 price point was a number I pulled out of thin air. I guesstimated it entirely and nobody in the industry told me to expect it, or that it was realistic. It could be 140 or 202 or 362 dollars. No clue. But from my perspective, if a company is willing to produce our weird special part, I think that's worthy of being rewarded with making a purchase. Tooling isn't free.

Full disclosure: if they decide to produce the part, the person who sent them the seal used to develop the molds and do test-fitting will receive the finished product for free. This is obviously a huge benefit to the person who sends in the seal. I am motivated by the "greater good" here of getting a product on the market, but obviously I think that's a nice perk as well. But if someone has a nicer one, the nicest possible seal should be the one we send in. Mine is pretty good but not perfect.

From that same derby car partout, I also got the weird little rubber triangle things that go on the ends of the tailgate window, and these ones are perfect. I will send those along with the tailgate seal. Anything else that anyone can think of?

I'm going to work on making a rigid box to ship this thing in, and it'll probably go out in the next couple weeks provided nobody speaks up about having a better one to send to them. Reference photos linked from the first post.

[sly]

Same way I got the belt molding clips for the 88-91 MGM. I found a company that needed to do R&D on a new 3D scanner and needed a small complex part to test with. It was a major boon for them and I got a free run of test parts that proved to print well in almost any orientation in their machines. Elias also got some of those to mount moldings on his car and to my knowledge, they are still holding. That was before the panned demmick, so that's at least three years now. Getting the STL file took walking in since the guy that did it went to another company and left me hanging. But I digress. We know the clips work in nylon and should work with any filament, we just don't know how long. But we can all print those now, so there's that.

[Kodachrome Wolf]

Full disclosure: if they decide to produce the part, the person who sent them the seal used to develop the molds and do test-fitting will receive the finished product for free. This is obviously a huge benefit to the person who sends in the seal. I am motivated by the "greater good" here of getting a product on the market, but obviously I think that's a nice perk as well. But if someone has a nicer one, the nicest possible seal should be the one we send in. Mine is pretty good but not perfect.

I think your good seal is about on par with the one I got, so that's essentially same = same. I'd say send yours in and see what happens!

If they decide to actually remake that seal, that'll be huge for us.