Thread: Defender water leaks

We rebuilt our Defender from the ground up as far as the body work goes. As for the roof, we turned this upside down, supported it well on tressels and partly filled it with water.

The first seam across the roof did leak in a number of places and the seal across the windscreen top was also very poor. We resealed these with Sikaflex seam sealer from both the inside and the outside. We have no leaks in this area. The seam is difficult to get at from the inside as it is hidden behind a support channel.

Erich

Water leak fixed.

The problem finished up being the seal around the clamp bracket attaching the windscreen to the firewall. The gasket was was damaged. Water ran down the edge of the windscreen, behind this bracket and through along the center securing bolt through the firewall to the inside of the car, appearing like it was coming through the seal somewhere.




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New seal made from neoprene rubber insertion


Erich

Originally Posted by 87County

didn't some wise person write once that "we can't keep the oil in.... and we can't keep the water out" ?

its easy to keep water out. Just put it in a shed when it rains

Originally Posted by woko

its easy to keep water out. Just put it in a shed when it rains

If only it'd fit

After all the usual fixes for water ingress,I found that I was still getting water on the drivers side floor whenever it rained.Finally this is what I did to fix it .Found that the previous owner has removed the plastic from under the door trim,and when it rained the water would run down inside the door and splash through the opening,faster than it would drain out the drain holes in the bottom of the doors.I also relieved the drain holes in the doors with a small drill bit.Nice to have dry feet,at least when I am not up past the sills in water

Originally Posted by 5teve

DOes water come out of the roof lining? if so im chasing the same leak.. it only happens when i park the deefer facing uphill. The inner (closest to the roof panel) channel fills with water and runs to the back. once im underway and brake.. whoosh! i get my leg covered in lovely cold water.. im thinking roof seam or alpine window seal...

doesnt even leak when driving either!

Steve

I have exactly the same problem. Only occurs when left parked facing up a slope. Never occurs when parked facing down a slope. Doesn't leak when driving.

I've pulled the roof lining in the driver's front corner back far enough to see that the water has to be coming from the end of the internal roof channel. That is, water is leaking into this channel when the car is parked up a slope and accumulating down the rear end of the channel. What I can't work out is why when the car is parked downhill that I don't have any sign of water on the driver's side floor. Very strange !!

I've got a full length Rhino roof rack and when I asked Coopers (St Peters) about the leak they said they've seen it before with Defenders fitted with roof racks. So I thought that maybe the filler in the gutter had split on the driver's side under one of the roof rack gutter brackets. Coopers thought this was worth looking at.

I took the roof rack off yesterday to see if there were any cracks in the filler along the external gutter and while the paint on the filler had many very small splits, none of these looked like they went right through the filler. Under the roof rack brackets the filler was heavily grooved but I couldn't see any splits.

I also couldn't see any gaps in the roof join near the B pillar nor any gaps where the alpine window seal meets the bodywork.

So, the only thing I can think of doing at this stage is to wipe sealant over all the tiny splits in the paint over the filler in the gutters and fill the grooves in the filler under the brackets with sealant before re-fitting the roof rack.

More on my leak over the driver's door when Peril's left parked up hill in rain.

In my last post I said that I was heading down the track of smearing sealant all along the driver's side gutter over all the splits in the paint over the filler.

While I had a lot of splits in the paint over the filler in both gutters, none of the splits looked to go through the filler. However, the split at the very end of the gutter on the driver's side was quite wide. Here is a photo of the driver's side gutter. (Passenger's side gutter photo is at the bottom for comparison.)


Driver's side gutter.jpg

So I figured I should see if I could test the driver's side split somehow and at the same time rule out the smaller splits along the full length of the gutter.

It occurred to me that if I filled the driver's side gutter with water along all its length, except for the last 50mm of the gutter closest to the windscreen (and vice versa) then this might show up something.

When I started to do this, I found I could only effectively temporarily block the driver's end of the gutter close to its end but not right at the end. So I went ahead with blocking the gutter about 50mm short of the end. I then filled the gutter with water (after getting the gutter level) and left it for about four hours.

Result? No leak when driving a few metres and braking hard repeatedly. Checking under the roof lining over the door revealed no sign of water. Conclusion; if water was getting in via the gutter it had to be in the last 50mm of the gutter at the driver's end.

So, I taped up the very end of the gutter as best as I could and filled the gutter with water once again. I had to keep topping up the water in the gutter as the taping allowed a small weep of water. I kept this up for about half an hour. Tried the repeated braking exercise but no leak. Then I inspected the inside of the roof lining over the door and eureka! A few drops of water!

So I've smeared a small amount of sealant over the split and around the end of the gutter. Probably less than 1 cc of sealant. Have tested it by spraying a hose on the end of the gutter and by leaving Peril out overnight parked facing up hill when there was heavy dew.

So far no sign of any water. Hopefully problem solved.

Found another leak today.Leaking around the windscreen seal and running down and dripping off the bolts for the windscreen hinge on the drivers side.Have already sealed the hinge.Rang a local windscreen guy,who said he does a lot of Defenders at the local RAAF base,he recommended to replace the rubber,and to use a genuine seal only?He says that he has had aftermarket seals that wont seal properly.Told him my seal is in good condition and isn't perished.Anyway I Rang LR and was quoted $235 and not in stock.After falling off the chair and taking pure oxygen I confirmed with the spare parts guy,that that was for the seal and not the windscreen.I then hung up and rang,a local independent parts supplier,that supplies genuine parts and was told $93.50 incl.GST.
I am now thinking I might just use my original seal and just get it sealed,even though LR don't use sealant from the factory.Or buy an aftermarket seal,made in the UK for under $40.Anyone have thoughts on whether to use sealant or not?

Wayne