I have a new OEM front targa seal top and bottom in a plastic bag all folded up in the outside shed. It's 3 years old since I bought it.

Rolled up and hot? Open flat cold?

Oil it up?

What's the best way to store expensive rubber and preserve it until needed?

standard answer is

Put it on my car till you need it

Sealed with argon and put in a temp controlled area with humidity monitors.

Get it out of the shed and put it in a closet in the house somewhere, less temp swing that way.

I have the PERFECT place for it. I'll send you my address.

no oil, or anything else for that matter. Just inside the house in a dark closet with a moderate temperature. Rubber breaks down in several ways. Attack from a substance such as oil is one way, sunlight is another big one. Heat plays a role too. The damage from the synergy of all three would most likely be greater than any one by itself.

............I agree completely, and would add.....I,ve had to do what your doing (storing hard to find rubber bits)(and tires) many times over the years. Use a BLACK plastic bag big enough so you do not have to fold the rubber parts up. Coat, saturate, unindate, flood , the rubber parts with the best silicone you can find...their are some really good ones nowdays. Seal the bag with a tye wrap or similar.

Is the silicone U use the silicone lube in the spray can or something else? From a Flaps? Thanks.

Oh and I'll install it on any car parked in my drive and the key in my pocket. (:>)

You want to keep away from heat, in a dark closet, plastic bag is good. No silicone, use 303 Aerospace protectant. It will seal the pours so ozone can't have it's way with it.
I have some if you can't find it $6 a bottle, but pick up locally if you can find it to save on shipping.

I actually send mine out pretreated with 303.

303 is used on all the rubber trim on my cars. It make the black bumper tops look great with out being greasy. It is supposed to have a UV protectant in it as well.

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Has anyone used 303 on the seats? My seats have that fine hairline crack old seats have. I've soaked then in Mothers Leather treatment twice, and they're holding up, but do you think 303 would work better than leather treatment?

Found a 303 supplier close by and will pick some up today for the rubber parts. Thanks.

Are your seats leather Joey? If not, I don't think there is anything in the leather conditioner or the 303 that would help.

I haven't used 303, don't know what's in it. But while a UV protectant could possibly help, from a materials science standpoint it probably isn't going to. The UV protectant isn't going to get absorbed into the vinyl seats, which is where you'd need it to be to do any good. You'd need the protectant to mix with the vinyl, which can't happen once the vinyl is cooled to the point that it's a solid (which it is right now, even if our bazillion degree heat days here in Texas make your backside feel differently when you sit down in the car). So the protectant is just sitting on the surface. The thickness of that protectant is so tiny, that the amount of UV inhibitors in the protectant would need to be incredibly large. UV inhibitors are extremely expensive raw materials, and if we did a test on these protectants to see how much was in them, I think we'd find that the actual amount of UV inhibitors is miniscule.

Also, once initiated, degradation of a material really never stops (think rust on our cars!!). Once you get to the point of cracking on vinyl, I don't believe that anything we could do would stop that process. UV light, which has a short wavelength, is damaging the material. Other factors could come in to play as well, most notably heat and water. Car interiors don't see much water, but definitely heat. Which is why we see more damage to the interior materials on cars in the south vs. cars in the north. Besides your seats, this same phenomena is happening with the dashboards (PVC) and the drivers side armrest (some type of rubber material).

Huh, I must be logged in undet different logins...weird. Rob-O and Rob-O 1167 are one and the same. I guess I didn't realize I had two usernames. I may have to look into that.