Pillar seals

I feel like a moron for asking this, but how do you get to the retainer screws holding on the windshield pillar seals? I can't find an open edge on the old ones. I don't know if the old ones are so "crusty" the rubber has just bonded to itself or what. Btw, that frame-to-body seal is a bona-fide bitch. How'd you like to be the guy at Abingdon who had to do that all day?!

If you have the old rubber off, don't worry about putting the screws back in, they're not needed. If the old rubber is still on, cut it to wehere you can get to the screws. Your discription of the frame to body seal in entirely accurate. I had to cuss mine into place too.

I do put the aluminum reinforcement piece back when I put the new seal on. I don't have a clue how they did it at the factory. What I do is, with an exacto knive cut a very small slit where the screw goes to put the screw through the aluminum piece,then through the rubber,and into the hole in the frame. As far as getting the old rubber off. Just cut it so you can see the screw.

Now you tell me John! I had a helluva time getting the retainer & screws back in. I did it similar to what Tom B. described, his way would be easier, but instead of cutting a slit, I poked a hole with an awl then drove the screw into place then pulled the outer rubber back over the screw head. It was hard getting the screw to hit the it's hole in the pillar, and since the rubber was new a lot of force was needed to get the screw to bite. Hope those new seals last forever. I have no repeatable words to use for the frame to body seal. The engineer who designed that mess should have been sentenced to installing them 24-7.

I just lucked out. I didn't know a thing about MGs when I got my car so I read about it a lot before and while working on it. The thing about not needing the screws came up somewhere, I tried it their way, and it worked fine.

Porter also suggests leaving the strip and screws out, and like Tom, says no one has ever been able to figure how they got there in the first place.