Any know of a good trunk seal for a 71 Riv, the after market seal I put on mine is allowing exhaust to be sucked into the trunk with the windows down? After a long ride I start to feel like a mopar driver with a trunk full of white rabbits!
Your Riv trunk lid may be missing the rubber sealing flaps for the flow through ventilation system. Look on the underside of the trunk lid above the taillights for a couple of rubber flaps the hsve 'DO NOT REMOVE' molded into them. Sounds like they are missing and exhaust is getting sucked back into the interior.
You sure you don't have any holes in the exhaust/trunk/floor? Maybe a leaking exhaust manifold? I'm just sitting here thinking that the exhaust would have to travel up over the bumper, travel backwards against the flow of the wind as you are driving and then down into the trunk, and then have to accumulate enough in the cabin to notice it with the windows down. My weather stripping is shot and I've never had that problem.
Trevor & 72rivguy, thanks for the reply, the ventilation seals are there. There are no holes in the trunk. I got no exhaust smell, until after the new seal was replaced. I had ratty old worn out ones like we all have from a 130k 1971 riv. The only think I can fathom is either the new ones are too soft, they are no where near as firm as the ones that where removed and are allowing gases in or they are not large enough. The faster I go the more gassed I get. The exhaust is also down turned and extends an inch or more beyond the bumper. I'll crawl under that beast to see if there is anything I'm missing, but I know in the past that similar tail pipes would allow x gas to come into other cars I've had, if the trunk wasn't fully shut.
You can adjust the trunk striker so that it pulls the trunk lid further down too. That should allow you to make a better seal if thats the problem.
The trunk does not close like it used to and the push button trunk latch does not release as it did before also. The car was just painted just prior and I don't think they removed the trunk, they did remove the seal, but I should look into whether its misaligned, looks fine. I ordered another trunk seal, will see what that looks like, memory fails me but I think the package I ordered was from Classic Buicks, doors, sail, trunk etc. but I'm not sure, I ordered it several years ago then finally installed it. Did not use adhesive when I installed it, because it seemed to fit and stay so well. I'll let you know if I can fix this problem, cause there is no joy in inhaling exhaust, and I'm not gonna live with it, I'd rather drive my truck at this point. One other thing that was mentioned about the vent seals, they did paint over the vent seals, while it had been shot over before, I have to take a look at them to see if they are stuck open, car is out to camp in the garage and I haven't had time to get out there and take a look this week. Thanks for the input.
Found the problem or at least solved it There are four holes at the front of the trunk lid at the top of the U of the lid. These holes are outside of the trunk seal, exterior. These holes were previously sealed with Tape, when the car was painted, the auto body shopped removed the tape and shot the inside of the hood. I put duct tape over the holes and the vacuum of exhaust into the interior has stopped or significantly reduced, meaning my eyes don't water while I drive down the road. The damn exhaust was travelling up the channel between the body and trunk lid and was sucking into the two 1 inch holes at the bottom of the lid and 3/8 inch holes and going back into the interior. The tape on those holes may have been added 20 years ago, who knows, it may have been a design fault, it may be something blocking the original ventilation system who knows. The tape is staying that's for sure.
