Sliding window weatherstripping

This week I received the long awaited weatherstripping for my sliding windows. Like many other parts, this was no longer available through Toyota, so I had to source for an alternative.

The OEM sliding windows are a feature only seen on the BJ44, the BJ42 LX and the HJ47, all not very common trucks. This makes sourcing for alternatives very hard, and the handful of owners of these trucks I could find all had the same question: “Where can I find the felt run weatherstripping for my sliding window?”. Because the precise sizing of this is so important, It seemed to be impossible to find… or not?
Well maybe I can make a few of you happy then, because I found the perfect match… in Australia.. 🙂

A fellow member of the Ih8mud Forum, had like me the same demand. He owned a Australian BJ42 with dried out weatherstripping. He, like me, also searched for ages, but he was lucky and stumbled upon a small company in Australia that had the type of weatherstripping in the exact size. Miracles do exist.
Kind as he was he offered me to buy the weatherstripping, and helped me ship it to the Netherlands. And there it was.

Besides the felt weatherstripping I also had to find a replacement for the U shaped profile with metal reinforced sides.
This type of weatherstripping, freely translated from dutch, is named clamp profile, because it had the ability to clamp itself on the edge of sheet metal. And that what it does in this case’s well. it clamps onto the 2 mating sheet metal edges of the hardtop side and the window frame. This way it firmly holds the frame in its place.
Fortunately this was less hard to find, and I sourced the perfect size from a Dutch company specialized in classic car parts and materials.

I took some pics so you can see the weatherstripping and compare it with the OEM one.. maybe its hard to see which is new and old, but the faded one is the OEM one..