Access Cab Wind Noise SOLVED! (Also, door seal replacement guide.)

Hello friends,

After reading every single proposed solution and a couple of huge threads on the topic, I finally solved the right-in-my-left-ear wind noise when driving over 50 MPH.

The fix: Updated door seals installed with a little extra double sided tape and a homemade "plug" for the back side of the front fender. I definitely think the extra tape made a difference by keeping wind coming in through body panel gaps from going under the seal between the clips.

Materials:
- Full set of door seals, especially if you have the factory originals that DON'T look like the updated versions (check photos below).
- Double-sided outdoors window tape. I used 5/16" Frost King. One 54" roll is more than enough.
- Tape, plastic, Sugru, or something else you come up with; I have a temporary solution below, I'm waiting on parts to make a permanent solution and will update this thread.

For an Access Cab, there are four seals total:


Procedure:
1) Pop your seals off. I started with the "body" seal, of which you can see the front bottom end in the picture below. You'll have to remove the footwell trim as well as the floor trim. Here's a photo of how that footwell snaps in and out in case you've never done it before:


2) Find a little spot of rust that has formed some time in the last 13 years, freak out, call Toyota Corporate, and threaten to return your truck:


Then, you'll need to remove the piece of trim that goes over the top door latch (seen in place in the above photo). A T27 selected randomly from the bottom of the tool bag did it for me, they aren't in very tight:


3) Get your front door seal off. This one is all in one piece. You'll have to take your door check bolt out, it's a 10mm. You could always just cut the seal to get it off without removing the bolt, but you'll have to remove it anyway to put the new one back on:


Wrap the end of that sucker in masking tape or you'll inevitably end up scoring the paint with it while you wrangle the seal.

4) The leading edge of the suicide door comes off first as one piece, then the other part comes off as another piece:



5) Patrol all the door edges looking for clips that pulled out of your ancient, rotting seals instead of coming off with them. There are two types - round guys on the corners, and "T" shaped guys elsewhere.



6) Clean all surfaces extremely well and then degrease - I used denatured alcohol and blue shop towels. We want the double sided tape as well as the factory adhesive corners to stick as well as possible.

7) I started with the suicide door. Go in the reverse order you took them off. GO SLOW, especially on the leading corners. The bottom corner especially is a complex shape, but the seals fit exactly perfectly if you put them on slowly and carefully. I started at the top corner with the two round black clips and worked my way around.

Here's a comparison of the tops of the old and the new, side by side (the new one is on top). It's hard to tell from the picture, but the profile is definitely different and the new ones are thicker - and NOT just because the old ones are all worn out:


Notice that on the top and bottom corners there's some factory adhesive strips:


In both locations, I added pieces of double-sided tape to augment the factory adhesive.

Put the third strip on - it definitely has an "up" and a "down" - the "up" side fits the corner of the pinch weld. Start at the top and move downwards. I was missing some kind of clip for the door panel here. I don't know how long it was missing for, but I replaced it with a spare splashguard push-clip and it worked great.



9) Next, the front door. Go slow and start at the bottom rear corner with the two round black clips, then go up and around.

Before I installed the seal, I laid down a track of double-sided adhesive starting at the top rear corner and going all the way down the front edge of the door (squint hard at the third picture below and you'll see it). I ran it so that the edge of the tape ran through the clip holes:



Here's the old and the new seal side by side. Note that the new one has a piece of 1/4" round molded in where a lot of people were sticking backing rod or sprinkler line. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.



10) Take it for a test drive and find that the noise is almost completely gone!

11) Get home and get mad that it isn't completely gone.

12) Inspect the whole thing again and notice that the rubber liner on the backside of the fender is floppy and doesn't sit flush:



If you look at how the front corner of the door seal sits in relation to this gap in the fender, it's clear that air is coming through the interior of the fender and pushing in behind the front corner of the seal. By sealing this hole, you're removing the last place for air to be injected behind the seals.

13) Cover it with a piece of masking tape left from painting the rust spot in your doorframe, take a test drive, and find no wind noise in your ear at 75MPH:


Again, once I get a piece of rubber cut and fitted to my satisfaction, I'll update with a more refined technique than green tape.

 

Thanks for the DIY.

Well documented and detailed.
Good job

 

Thank you for this. I've had a noise for a while now that's driving me nuts. I read your post last night and this morning I stuffed a glove in the upper drivers door jamb this morning on my way to work. No noise!

I'm still waiting on all the seals / gasket. Curious what solution you ended up with.

 

When I get a day that's warm enough I'm gonna cut a piece of the mass loaded vinyl I have for the interior and glue it in. I'll post up when I do it.

 

Nice write up! Question, do the new seals come with new clips or do you have to reuse? Also the latch you have to remove is it the locking mechanism on the top door, can you elaborate a little more? My door seals have sucked ass since day 1.

 

The new clips are integral with the new seals. Most of the old ones on mine stayed in the door when I pulled the old seal off, thus the pic of the handful of them after individual removal.

If I recall correctly it's not the latch itself but rather the molded plastic trim/cover for the latch, at the top of the door opening where the suicide door latches to the cab. You can see it still attached in the photo of the rust spot towards the top of the post.

 

Interesting thread. My AC has the same wind noise issue and I have been noticing how the door seals are somewhat degraded and wearing out. Gonna have to look into this.

 

^

 

how do I save the article

 

I seem to remember wiping door seals with a rag dampened with brake fluid to swell them and it lasted a while. Maybe not a good idea with the newer seal materials and different brake fluid formulations.

 

I am a simple man so I beg for your understanding but are the seals listed in the first post just for the driver side?

 

As I recall that's all four doors (on an access cab - the two fronts and the two suicides). If you look up the part numbers the full descriptions (not the cut off ones on the labels in the pics) should verify that.

Edit: p/ns listed are for a complete set of driver side seals only

 

That's what got me curious. When I went to order them locally, they all say left. Again, to get into my thick skull, these are just seals for the doors themselves and not the body?

 

Oh, even the one that goes onto the cab is called a "door seal", not a "cab seal". If you look at the first few pics (and the narration for step 2) you can see where I'm pulling the seal off the cab opening, removing the top door latch cover, etc.

 

Alright so it's 4 seals per side?

 

Yeah, one body, one front door, and two pieces for the suicide door.