Is the cowl weatherstrip seal between your hood and engine bay sagging or loose? This is because the plastic clips embedded in the rubber have become worn out or broken.



While the weatherstrip part is discontinued the clips are not and they are easy to replace!

It takes about 10-12 of these. Toyota P/N 90467-10146. I ordered 16 of them just to have some spares for the future.



With the new clips in hand what you do is turn over the loose areas of your weatherstrip and break the tabs from inside or VERY GENTLY pull on one side of each tab to stretch the rubber just enough to allow the old, worn out or broken tab to come out. The weatherstrip can have tears in it or develop minor tears as a result of messing with them but if you’re careful you should be okay removing each one without any compromising of the rubber seal’s tab insertion area. Inserting the new clips is easier than removing the old ones.

After replacing them all and popping the rubber back into place across the cowl area you will have a nice, tight seal again!

It took me less than ten minutes to do this job. Easy!

Here’s what some old and damaged SC cowl weatherstrip clips look like after almost 30 years:

 

Thanks for the knowledge! If you dont notice its loose or sagging, should it be changed anyways?

 

Welcome! And no I wouldn't bother changing them unless a significant number of the original clips are broken. They last a very long time from new and it just depends on whether a particular SC needs a new set of clips in that cowl seal weatherstrip rubber. If there's nothing wrong with the clips in yours and the weatherstrip remains secure in place as it should be then just leave it alone until it becomes a problem later on.

But it can't hurt to order a few of the clips, label them and set them aside with your spare parts for a future repair.

In my car enough of the original clips were broken such that replacing most of them had become necessary. My SC's rubber seal is still in very good shape and I think that's probably the case for most of these cars. It's just the little retaining clips that can break down over 2-3 decades but YMMV. A couple of my original clips were still good and I left them alone while only replacing the broken ones. Whenever those last few originals eventually break I've got a few brand new spares.

This will be a replace once and forget service unless a full body strip and repaint comes later on.

 

Their lifespan must be up because mine all randomly broke on their own. I noticed it just the other day when I was checking my oil. Thanks for the part numbers!

 

Good news. Had not checked on this, just took for granted that I would need the whole strip. Will order today sure.
Thanks

 

Good call Craig - mine are all toast as well!

 

Nice, that is good work on this. Mine just sit up there and fall into the engine bay everytime I open the hood. Will order these.

 

Happy to help, everyone! It's the many little repairs like these that are what keep our SC's in good shape as they all add up