71-72 javelin taillight housing sealing

Anyone with a 71 or 72 javelin. How did you seal the taillight housings to the body. The rubber seal looks to be in too poor condition to reuse and the one I ordered from one of our vendors looks like it will in no way serve the purpose.

I'm not talking about the lenses in the housings. I'm talking about the housings sealing to the body.

You could consider using plumbers putty, it handles like play dough and seems to remain soft over time

Well you could do what I may do with some hidden seals. There is a newer type of two part silicone casting compound, that you mix by hand like putty. It is not made to stick and is easily formed. Though it is not intended to be used as a hand made gasket, its heat range can be good enough to cast molten low melt point metals.

I messed around with a small kit and found it was rubbery but firm enough to hold shape when compressed. Figured it would be a nice option for reusable valve cover gaskets. The key is to be a bit fast laying out the form and to mix well. The sealing will be a compression seal, not an active bond seal.

They sell the kits in 1 oz, 3 oz and larger. For $20 you can get 6 oz, which can make a lot of gaskets, or enough to do what you want after a few trial runs to get use to working with the stuff.

Those original gaskets are pretty hard to reuse..They are actually several pieces....maybe 4 spliced together if I remember right...A large one for each end and 2 short ones for the center housing..I think they were just round skinned foam stock originally, but finding that now may be a challenge....Bob Reno in Alabama