Rubber Door Wedge

[Cliff Hanson]

The door stop rubber wedge was apparently beveled (about 45*) on my original wedges. Is the bevel supposed to face toward the outside or the inside? I think the new replacement parts are not beveled. Any comments?

[Tom Tate]

Based upon the different size bevels on the wedges I removed over the years, I assumed that the bevels were from wear. The fact that the replacements had no bevel reinforced my assumption as correct. Surely someone with a low mileage car who's door hasn't been opened that much, can take a look in there and give us some insight as to the wear factor. KTF

[Max Handley]

Tom not saying your info. Is incorrect but from my experience I think they were beveled .45 deg.Bevel seems to be close. Don't remove too much material, refit make your adjustment and test for proper hold , and operation . These make a minor thunk as they pass over the beveled edge. The holes that for the rubber are somewhat enlarged allowing for some minor adjustment. You will most likely have to make a few adjustments as to their best position for proper operation.


In my experience the out of the box non- beveled rubber will not work at all correctly, the rubber always seemed to thick not allowing the door to operated properly at I least on the cars I have operated on.

This is just my experience and would appreciate further discussion.

[Brad Ripley]

In my experience (IME), the door wedge "thumper" always was made like this - the end against the door is 90 degrees (parallel to the mounting side). Yes, the wear can be about 45 degrees. If so, just turn it over and re-adjust to get the proper "thumping noise" for a few more years.

[Alex Mestas]

Hi Cliff:
This is what the door wedges end look like new. Tom is correct they probably are bcome more beveled from wear. I didn't remove any material from mine. The holes that hold the rubber wedges to the wall are somewhat enlarged allowing for some minor adjustment side to side.

Door Wedges.gif (10.46 KiB) Viewed 4151 times

[Xavier Lepert]

Is there some pics available of the wedge when installed on the car ? I have wedges but no clue on how and where to put them on the car as I don't see any potential fixing holes.

Herve

[Brad Ripley]

Maybe the location of the slotted screw holes in the closing panel can determine where to put the door thumper rubbers? Here's a parts catalog illustration that might work. Maybe someone can measure an original car and fill in the measurements?

[Xavier Lepert]

Thank you.
Is there a picture of an installed wedge, this could be of great help ?

[Max Handley]

On an earlier post I mentioned I thought the door wedges should be beveled to work properly. Here's my last experience installing new wedges. This particular car was 62 Restored Karmann coupe. The doors were original and never hit, the front closing panels were original to the car with no rust or any other type repair. When the restoration was completed and doors re-hung after being painted they had forgotten to install the door wedges.

I purchased new wedges and installed them as delivered , no modification. I tried every position that the elongated slots would allow. The doors would open & close but it took a lot more effort and the rubber wedges made wayyyy more resistance that was provided by the factory. I don't know if the rubber composition has changed over the years but needless to say I had to bevel the edges on both wedges to get the proper thunk and resistance I recall as being factory correct. Anyone else have the same experience??

[Martin Benade]

We need somebody with a calibrated hand and ear, old enough to have had a brand-new 356. Most of us only know them as well-worn old cars. My guess is that the shop manual would have given directions on beveling the wedges if they were supplied semi-finished. My T6 with closing panels carefully replaced but maybe not exactly as original did not need its wedges ground to sound right to me, for what it is worth.

[Doug McDonnell]

Herve in the link you can see a few pictures I posted of the wedges on my 64 C Coupe viewtopic.php?f=1&t=35158&hilit=door+stop

[Brad Ripley]

For what it's worth, I've been making and selling those door thumpers going on 40 years now. We sell about 1500 pieces per year of the same part from the same vendor. No one has wanted the part redesigned one bit; nothing about it being 45 degrees.

[Max Handley]

Maybe I should have lubed them up a bit, never thought of that. After a few hundred closures they would be perfect.

[Max Handley]

Brad

Just for the record I was in no way saying this was a defective design or product, just the opposite . As in everything you have made and designed we are forever in your debt. Thank you for all your contributions.all I can so for me it was a small tweek to make it work the way I
Iike.
After some more thought maybe the doors were a bit too far forward making the tolerances more critical for the proper wedge fit.

Best Max H

[Martin Benade]

I think that the Reutter factory had twelve-year-old apprentice boys opening and closing the doors hundreds of times until they worked properly.