[rideair]

Just went through the same process with my tailgate version.

I personally got the old weather stripping off (not fun brittle broke off in small pieces), but found much of the glue/sealer under the gasket was still very sticky even after 30 years. On mine, I just scraped off the stuff that was no longer sticky leaving the good stuff still in place to help seal the new gasket along with the sealant I was using.

Figured, why remove something sticky when I'm just going to turn around and put something sticky right back on?

Enjoy