HATCH SEAL REAR, 79-85 MAZDATRIX

1 review for HATCH SEAL REAR, 79-85 MAZDATRIX

1. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Kyo (verified owner) – September 16, 2023

   If you’re anything like me you have often been told there is a lot of junk in your trunk, and like me, you probably don’t want soggy goodies.
   Replacing the hatch seal and making sure the drains and tubes are clean and in good order is a great away to avoid swamp trunk and help protect your 40+ year old Mazda from rust back there.

   Mazdatrix is at it again with their sourcing and commissioning of in demand rotary parts to keep your car its best.

   So how does this one fair? 5/5. They aren’t pulling your leg, fit is as good as OEM- perhaps better even.
   Installation is a breeze, same as OEM.

   Be aware that even the OEM seals “sit proud” when installed- your 40 off year old weather strips had been compressed for months by the time the car was on the dealer lot new and for decades by the time you’re reading this. New seals are “tall” because they haven’t been broken in.

   When I first installed this deal, my trunk wouldn’t close, and forcing it felt like I’d break the glass.
   My OEM new sunroof seal behaved the same way too- so don’t worry- it’s normal and the OEM seals are the same. Maybe not as extreme as I experienced- but that’s my car not the seal. Let’s dig in to that here.

   You pull the old seal off, barehanded will generally do. Now is a good time to clean the area and treat any rust or bare metal if you have it.
   To get the seal away from the car you will need to remove your hatch struts- at least from one end, pick the c clip or unscrew the ball studs, it doesn’t particularly matter.
   Because you’ll be removing the struts, you may want a suitable prop to hold the hatch open while you work, or a helper. Or go alone and hold it up with one arm. Just be safe. Pay attention to the orientation of the old seal for installing the new one. Not critical because Mazdatrix made this easy for you- more on that in a moment.

   Once the old seal is off, slip the new seal past the struts. You can re attach them not or later since the seal is now “around” them.

   On the Mazdatrix seal you will find two rectangular notches cut into the seal. Don’t worry- they didn’t send you a bad part. Those notches line up with your drain holes in the trunk so the seal doesn’t block drainage. Use those to index the seal. Once those are lined up to your drain holes so they aren’t blocked, start pushing the channel in the strip down onto the ridge running along your hatch opening. If you really want, you can apply some 3M weatherstrip adhesive/seal or similar.

   Start by securing the deal around the drain holes so your deal doesn’t shift positions on you. From there, just work around the seal making sure to push it all the way don’t on the tab all the way around until you are back where you started.

   Give it one last check, it should look straight or “true” when viewed from the side and not appear “wavy.” If yours isn’t even, do another round or as many as it takes of pushing it down until it is nice and seated.

   If you didn’t put your hatch struts back yet, do so now.

   Close your hatch gently and see if it closes for you. If it closes but is a bit high, you’re done. Let it sit with the hatch closed and even overnight you should see some improvement. Over time it will settle up. Enjoy your dry trunk.

   If you can’t close your hatch or feel excessive resistance when closing your hatch, you may have an issue like me.

   As I mentioned, my hatch wouldn’t close.
   My car, over its life and the course of its body work and such, seemed to have some warpage in the seal area.
   My solution after looking it over and deciding things didn’t look right, was to GENTLY AND SLIGHTLY bend the metal the seal sits on.

   In my case I needed to pull it inwards towards the center of the hatch ever so slightly. That very slight almost imperceptible change was enough that it still didn’t close easily, but it wasn’t bending the glass to close it anymore. After that I closed it, let it sit overnight, and it was tight but much better in the morning.

   Before you bend any metal, check things out and make sure you didn’t put the seal in backwards and it is pushed down all the way and not sticking up or there isn’t another issue like a tool left in the trunk rain gutter or such.

   It isn’t a bad idea after install to get a helper and test your seal. One sits in the car in the hatch area or facing towards it and the other uses a hose to spray the hatch area. If you don’t get water inside the hatch you can call it a success.

   Since you’ll be removing at least one end of the hatch struts to do the job, consider some replacement units if yours are old and saggy. It’s two extra fasteners and a couple connectors in labor to do it with the seal now, and it’ll feel pretty good knowing your hatch area is in top top shape and shouldn’t need attention for some number of years to come.

   Worried about your defroster wiring on the new struts? Don’t. But that is another review for another day.