Water ingress through air vents under wipers?

[MarinaCoupe]

Great advice Scoot - here's the link Captain Tolley

Sold through Frosts - product code S125

Frosts £7.15 plus postage.

I guess that you still need to find where the water is getting in though, unless you seal the entire way round the rubber.

[scoot]

But with this stuff, it's so easy to seal all around the seal inner & outer. It's "supposed" to be thinner than water (how's that work ?) & enters into the rubbers & creeps through using capillary action until it finds the open voids & then sets........It genuinely is easy to use & sets invisibly (I'm not the actual Captain Tolley & I don't get royalties for endorsing the product !!)

[Coupedriver]

Excellent advice!!

[mikmik]

Lads thanks for that advice - I've ordered some and we'll see how we go.

[scoot]

Well, I've not used "Capt Tolley's" on anything other than screen seals, I figure it would be too "runny" to seal wiper arm seats etc.....Further on the leakage scene.....I noticed a wet front passenger floorwell on Saturday & thought I ought to investigate. Oh Crikey !! The front parcel shelf was wet through & there was mold growing on the inside of the "upright section" at the rear of the shelf !! The rear passenger floor section was absolutely swimming !! So it was remove the full interior & investigate. The under carpet/front bulkhead deadening material was in a horrid state & acting like big old sponges !! Empty interior, get inside, upside down in the floor wells, look under dash. Now bearing in mind the car had a strip down to shell paint job in November, the attention to detail on re-assembly was a bit poor. Reusing dry rotted bulkhead grommets, re-seating brake pipes with nice new plastic clips fitted into slightly large holes....etc etc.....so it's kinda obvious how the water has got in & judging by the amount of water in the car, it hasn't got in through the car just standing. Unfortunately I had to use the car recently in heavy rain, so I guess I've forced the "road water" into the car through all these botched fittings. So drier weather will require an intensive weather sealing session. SO ADVICE PLEASE.... where to get..good quality easy fit (possibly two part internal/external screw together) bulkhead grommets or similar ?? Replacement (not too expensive) internal sound deadening foam/material (off the reel..cut to shape ??)

[Martec]

Hi Scoot,

Sorry to hear of your marina being a marina (full of water). in the past I eventually found that 'Auto Sparks' are one of the few people that sell the original 'Lucas' rubber grommets, blank or with holes in. Their catalogue is online, you can augment these cheaper by filling a bag with blank grommets from cars in scrapyards (they almost pay you to take them away).

by using a bigger grommet you can cleanly cut it and feed it around pipes and cables to seal.

The rear lights are not a very good fit in the body and often leak water into the boot, when I rebuilt and resprayed my car in cellulose I used ordinary silicon sealer, this attacked the paint and to this day it is still wet. Other paints may well be better but what is often recommended is 'tiger seal' made by Upol (a very good make) as it seals but does not attack cellulose paint (paint suppliers sell it). Tiger seal comes in the usual big tube you use in the hand pump guns.

If the holes are underneath It is worth removing any corrosion and using a rust killer, an etch primer(brush on) and a topcoat (I buy spraycans of unloved (cheap) colours) then cover this with underbody wax (I prefer dinitrol as I haven't seen it come off either car its on).

Hope there is something there you can use.

Brian

[mikmik]

I did the Captain Tolleys thing yesterday and there were a couple of voids in the screen rubber. Top corners most notably and one spot between the wipers where the white Tolleys fluid just disappeared down a hole!!. We'll see what the next rainy day brings. If its still wet I can give it another going over before moving to plan B.


Thanks for the advice lads

Mick