After much back and forth regarding what size window rubber seals my 1998 Bailey Pageant required, I settled on 30mm small bulb. This after measuring the wall thickness and the rubbers and getting 31/32mm. The bulb measured 10mm, easy I thought. Small bulbs are 10mm.
Ordered the rubbers and then replaced the three front windows that had failed seals. It was only when I finished and the windows would not close on the latches without a lot of force that I noticed the bulbs on the new rubber were a few millimetres larger. See pic of old against new.
Did I incorrectly assume small bulbs were all 10mm??
I have put spacers in between the latches and the windows and achieved a much less tighter fit. Still tighter than the other windows in the van, but then the rubbers on those are a lot older...
I have given the new seals a good minute spraying/flooding with a hose pipe and no water seems to be making it into the 'van. Should I worry, and hunt down correct 10mm bulb rubbers?
Called the supplier this morning, they went off and measured the bulb of the small variety...came back and said it was 10mm. They are sending out another sample to see if I have just bee sent the wrong product. Naturally I hope they have, but not looking forward to another day of ripping out rubbers, cleaning up mastic, fitting in-fill plastic(took hours!) :-S
Got the replacement seals. They measure 12mm :( This is crazy! the two sizes are 10mm and 13mm. How can their tolerance be that large?! That or I have been sent the incorrect size again.
I _think_ the 27mm wall thick version has smaller, thinner bulb...more akin to the original seals bulb. The original is definitely 30mm (29.5mm if I was being really harsh on the vernier measure).
My question is this...Would I be able to safely stretch out a 27mm wall thickness seal to 30mm??
I think I may end up with the same issue, previous owner replaced my front window rubbers with what you would think was the correct rubber however the windows will only close on the safety latch or second lug which means a small gap around some of the rubber, now weve had the van for 6yrs and had no water ingress but the side window rubbers are goosed so im watching your thread closely! My rubbers are grey with no lip on the bulb
The company I have purchased the rubber from have been really quite wonderful in a customer service sense. The chap dealing with me went to look at the 'ready to go' stock and measured bulbs for me. They are sending me out a coil that measures 10.5mm on average. I get in Monday and will fit a windows worth as soon as the weather lets me! So fingers crossed!
The small bulb rubber wall width (of the bulb) from what've can tell, tends to be thicker than the larger bulb. So I am hoping the few millimetres difference will mean there is enough difference in compression amount to mean I don't need spacers in the catches - which is what I have currently installed with the larger bulb rubbers :-/
The '10.5 average' bulb rubber I have been sent...measures 12mm to me :( Not been able to offer it up to the other samples yet...but looks quite large still... *sigh*
Not really sure what to do now. My wall thickness is definitely 30mm, and the bulb size is definitely small (10mm).
I asked for a sample of 27mm/small bulb to be sent to me as the profile pictures I have seen all show small/thinner-rubber-wall bulbs. Offered it up to the window opening. A bit of a tight fit, but seal seems sound. The bulb measures 10.3mm ! Result!
20m of it arrives tomorrow. I shall be fitting them as soon as there is a break in the weather. Hopefully I shall return for a final update of good news!
So I fitted the rubbers to one window. It seemed to fit well. However, half a week has passed now and I have just noticed that there is a gap between the front panel and the rubber. It is filled with mastic, so not sure how concerning it is. See pic below.
Unsure as to fit remaining windows, or leave the 30mm(wall), 12mm(bulb) rubbers on them and refit the same back to the window that has the 27mm (wall) on. There is no gap on the windows.
I did, they said I needed the only Bailey rubber seal on their parts website. This I can only order through a Bailey dealer. I looked at the picture on the parts site, only to see it is the newer square (huuuuge!) bulb on their newer vans. So they were no real help :(
I think I am going to re-fit the 30mm seals back to that window...and put the spacers back into the catches. It feels far from ideal, but spraying a hosepipe at the van didn't show any leaks...and that has to be a more vigorous water test than even the heaviest of rain showers!?