Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) Scuttle to lower screen seal!

That's it then, back in place! Only a matter of moments Sir!
Yeh! wish it had been, it was like wrestling with an Eel, and one hand tied behind my back!

I'd gone out to the garage full of joy with the windscreen under my arm and all ready to fit. A quick 30 minutes I'd estimated! I first went to fit the wires for the heated screen, first of the impossible tasks! An aid was needed here as you have to feed it under the leather scuttle trim which is held down tightly by those expanding pin type plastic fittings, five in fact not three!
Firstly find yourself one of those wooden spring pegs and twist it sideways to separate, this will give you two shallow wedges!.

Remove the spring from the peg and lay the two pieces on the scuttle, with your hand closest to the cockpit side you can reach under the inboard scuttle and feel for the holes the wires go through. Now for the aid! Take a cable tie about six inches in length and 4mm wide and cut off the block end which leaves you with a flat strip. take your pliers and on the tapered feed end bend it to 45' where the grip section starts. Next locate the correct hole for the wire you wish to feed through and introduce the wedges, one each side of the hole to hold the leather trim clear and create a shallow tunnel. then with your inboard hand feel for the hole and when found keep your finger resting on it. Now use the bent end to push under the trim and feel for the end as it touches the tip of your finger. As you relax the pressure of the finger against the hole you can at the same time advance the cable tie and it will follow your finger down through the hole. Advance it until you can pull a couple of inches through under the scuttle and stop. now tape the bullet connector of the wire for that side to the cable tie. I found that only a linear taping method worked and didn't overlap the wire or tie. Check your tape join now as you don't want to lose it! Now you can pull gently on the tie and at the same time push the wire and it's surprising how easy it was to steer the wire through the hole! Then repeat for the second wire.
At this point I lubricated the scuttle seal, both the round section and the guard facing element of it and also the screen pillar neoprene upright seals.

This is now the wrestling with the Eel part. I'm on my own and trying to hold the screen whilst feeding the wires through, not too bad and I can now approximate the screen into position and guess what! It slots into the pillars perfectly! So the next task is too fit the retaining screws back. Well, they are sitting 1/4" higher than the corresponding pillar holes. It's an almost impossible compression push to make on my own was in fact totally unachievable as it just pushed the bottom of the screen out of alignment down the scuttle, towards the front of the car! After some head scratching I realized that the screen pillars had compressible seals so I went and got some soft faced clamps and about a quarter of the way up from the scuttle applied a clamp each side fore and aft to the pillar. This held the screen in its correct location but allowed me to slide (compress) the screen down into a position where the holes lined up. I then fitted the two centre screws, first to one side and then the other, leaving them loose. Then the remaining screws were fitted and all sequentially tightened. Don't forget the two lowest screws are slightly longer.
When I initially removed my windscreen these had not been correctly fitted and a short screw was just hanging in the breeze on one side!
Now don't get me wrong, it took some real effort to compress the screen into position and I really would recommend this as a two man job, but I did manage it!
Finally I'd just add that both my pillars were loose when I removed the screen and in fact a nut from one of the three fastenings each side was totally missing. At some stage someone had decided to use this pillar mounting screw as an earth connector and the earth wire was hanging loose. I haven't yet deduced what the earth supplied but it was reconnected to a correct earthing point.

So that's it! all back in place with a new seal and all the bodge's that I found in the process sorted into the Bagian too!

I have taken a few pictures as well showing some of the solutions I had found for sorting the problem areas but am struggling to attach them. If anyone wants them I will be happy to send them to you via a more routine way.

Martin.

Is this the seal you are replacing as pictured here ? Or somewhere else ?

Yes Craig,
The seal that's attached to the bottom of the screen!
The picture you posted look's very reminiscent of my recent adventure!

Those two part screen pillars look much more sensible as it gives location and orientation. Hopefully it will allow you to compress the seal easier and refix!