Turbo Hood Air Seal Replacement

The old air seal on my Turbo Hood was in pretty bad shape and falling apart when I disassembled this section. They do not appear to make this anymore, at least I've never come across it anywhere online. About a little over a month ago I started looking into some kind of alternative to replace the old worn and rotted away air seal. My initial thought was to find perhaps a sheet of thin medium density foam rubber that I would be able to cut out a new air seal from after making a paper template of the old one. I was not having a lot of luck in that department until today when I was out at Home Depot near Polo Park when I had thought to check out the section where they carry all of the window and weather stripping. I came across a product for wrapping pipes which turned out to be a comparable thickness to the old air seal, best of all it was pre-gummed with a wax paper backing which I thought would make it much easier to work with.

I have included a picture of the wrapper for my Air Seal replacement alternative. As you can see it's for heating, Air Conditioning, refrigeration and plumbing, even UV protected and for indoor and outdoor usage.... perfect.

Step one was for me to cut off a strip long enough and then mark with a sharpie pen where to hole punch holes to allow my mounting bolts to fit through. 

Lay it out to test fit before sticking the stuff down.

Step two was to roll it on a little at a time. The stuff it pretty sticky once you start taking the wax paper backing off, it's also very pliable and easy to manipulate along the way.

Continue rolling it out being sure to allow plenty of room to place each hole over each of the mounting bolt holes one at a time.

Step three is to do the same one the other side. If you cut it right you can get the ends at the sides to match up pretty good. Like I say this stuff is pretty pliable and will stretch a little allowing for a lot of freedom to make a pretty good replacement air seal.

Here you can see my finished part now with a new air seal. Once re bolted back in place the new air seal will squish down making a perfect seal. Very nice replacement for a part that I would not be surprised is either impossible or at the very least very, very difficult to find... at least I had no luck finding one and this alternative works very well. ;)