This weekend I finally got around to installing a set of inner and outer door belt weatherstrip on my '89 Chevy C1500. As you can see in the picture below, I am a few years late in getting around to this but better late then never I guess.

At LRS we sell the complete inner and outer door belt weatherstrip kit for $54.95. 

Door belt weatherstrips are the pieces of rubber and felt that make the seal between the door and the window. Mine was in such bad shape that it might as well have been non-existent. 

Here is another shot of the outer door belt. Pretty sad huh? :)

This is the inner door belt. You can see that is is actually separating from thedoor panel.

Even the parts that appeared to be holding together were useless.

This is everything included in the kit, the outer door belts are reproduction pieces but the inners are GM original.

The first step is to pop out the plugs to gain access to the bolts that secure the door handle strap. I used a knife but a thin flat head screwdriver would work well.

If these are damaged on your truck we sell the straps and the plugs on our website.

Once the plugs have been removed you can see the two 10mm bolts that hold the handle in place. Just take out the bolts and the whole handle will come out as an assembly.

 Next we focus our attention on the door handle bezels. This is held in by metal clips and can be easily removed with just your hands.

In this shot you can see the clip that holds the bezel in place.

If your truck has power windows and locks you will now have to disconnect the buttons from the bezel.

To remove the button you will need to press the clips down and push the button out of the front side of the bezel.

Once the buttons are out the wiring harnesses can slide out.

Now, the door panel is ready to be removed. At this point I really could have used one of our door panel removal and hardware kits mainly because after twenty years of abuse my door panel clips are so brittle that they are nearly useless. But I didn't think about this at the time of my purchase so I guess I'll just have to live with it for now.

As you can see below, the outer door mirror will have toe be removed in order to remove the outer door belt.

Once the door panel has been removed you will have access the three 10mm nuts that hold the outer door mirror in place. Once you get these off the mirror will pop right off.

Once the mirror has been removed the outer door belt can be removed. In this picture you can see the way the new piece mounts compared to the old. The old piece was secured by thin metal clips while the new piece is held in place with wide plastic clips.

Just use your hand mallet to get the outer door belt to clip right onto the door. In this shot you can also see how it is secured to the door.

A little bit of trimming on the inside of the outer door belt was required to get the door belt to fit just right. But nothing major.

Once the outer door belt was in place I turned me attention to the inner. You can see here how the weatherstrip is attached with thick hog-ring type staples. 

You can see the difference between the new and old inner door belts in this picture. The new piece that cam with the kit was not identical to the old piece, it was a lot better!  the plastic molding was much stiffer, the felt went a lot higher on the window and the edges overlapped the other weatherstripping. I was very pleased with these pieces.

The old weatherstrip was so brittle that it broke away from the door panel with minimal effort.

I decided to use the old staples to re-attach the new inner door belts. So after prying out the staple and straightening them back out with a pair of pliars I used a knife to mark the locations of the stapled on the door panel.

Next I scored the door belt with the staple.

And drilled through the panel and door belt using the new score marks as guides.

Next I pushed the staple through by hand and crimped it back down with a pair of pliars.

You can see the crimped underside of the staple here.

Now the new weatherstrip is firmly in place!

At this point you can just reverse the previous steps to get everything back together.

In this shot you can see just how nice the seal is between the new door belts. Even when the window is rolled down the are pressed firmly together keeping the elements out of your door panel.

Not only do they seal a lot better, they also look about 1000 times better.

Compare this shot of the outside to the old pic, wow.

 All in all I am extremely pleased with the outcome. Not only does this install make my truck look a lot better but it also keeps out the cold and the wind! There is a noticable reduction in wind noise while driving with the kit installed!

All you need to to this is basic hand tools and around 1 hour per door. But trust me, it is well worth the effort!

Check out our photostream on Flickr for high-res versions of the images found in this article and more!