Stretching Rubber Trim

Hi all:

Having the pleasure of finally butting up the wagon since most of it was disassembled for leak finding. I had to redo several pieces of the black rubber trim onto the stainless side mouldings. As we know, these tend to do the "shrinky dink" thing over time and become shorter.

Not sure if this has been posted before or not, but I put the home oven on "Warm" and coiled a section on a baking pan and let it get very warm. I then pulled on it to stretch it and sure enough it works fine! I redid 3 sections this way and used the good 3M tape and there has been no shrinkage since I put them back on.

S

So I've finished stripping, etch priming, urethane painting and clear coating the wood trim pieces on our Roadmaster wagon and have decided to address the dented stainless belt trim and replace the missing rubber moldings.  I purchased a set of rubber moldings on the typical auction site, and was pleased with the quality after I cleaned off all of the adhesive and dirt.  Yesterday I removed the tailgate trim with the intention of readhering the rubber molding.  When I placed the rubber on the molding, it was recessed in about an inch and a half on both sides.  At first I figured it was the wrong molding but after looking at some images and reading this thread I realized that the rubber had shrunk.  Last night I tried to stretch it using this method and alas it seemed to work!  I did have to use soft clamps to retain the rubber to the desired length.  But I checked it after work today and it is the correct length!  Now I think I'll probably have to adjust the length of all of the moldings down the side to match.  If your moldings are disproportionately short, I'd advise using the above method to return them to a proper length.