Another leak thread - this time rear passenger footwell.

[ozscott]

Hi all,

Sorted around the windscreen some time ago but the old girl has started to leak water into the rear passenger (second row) floor on one side in heavy rain. I have removed the Rhino cross bars to get full access to the gutter to caulk in there. While the load area window 'seals' and alpine window 'seals' are full of cracks in understood that these were all bonded to the body (ie the rubber seals are for reducing wind noise only). If anyone can shed light on this i would be grateful. I may elect to put filler around the windows in any event just in case the bonding as let go, but my preference at this point is not to for aesthetic reasons. But form follows function and if the caulking of the gutter does not resolve it i will have no choice. Got to get her to 50 years. Almost half way there.

Cheers

[Tins]

Water has an annoying way of turning up some distance from where it gets in. I haven’t heard of the rear windows leaking but that doesn’t mean much. I have definitely heard of the Alpine ones leaking. Obvious question though is does it have a sunroof?
Unlike earlier cars like the RRC, the roof doesn’t come off so you can forget about that, if you were wondering. Personally I’d probably remove the head lining and get someone to play a hose over the roof. Of course, in my car I need to remove it anyway because it’s more of a curtain held up with drawing pins. Chang the RF receiver while you’re at it, or at least check and clean the earth. ( On mine the earth wasn’t even connected. I dunno how it ever worked, but I had to be standing right next to the car. Now it works from metres away. because I need to replace the head lining I simply cut it. ).

[ozscott]

Thanks mate. I reckon it's the (non original) Webasto Holliandia sunroof. I got it about 20 years ago and it's been fantastic but there was some twig caught in the seal. I think the water was running along the inside of the headlining and dripping into the rear passenger area. When I tested it today the vehicle was facing downhill a little and the water ran forward. The seal could need replacing on the sunroof. Looks and feels fine but may not be compressing enough. No drains (unlike original type). The Webasto relies on a rubber seal to keep the water out and as a design it has worked very well. I will do the gutters with new sealant while I am there. Cheers

[Tins]

I would definitely be suspicious of the sunroof. Mine has a Hollandia* in it. It sorta has drains, but they only go halfway down, and the body "channel" they drain through gets blocked if I drive past a dairy farm or something. The channel fills and hey presto, wet carpets.

* May be different. Dealer fitted, well Prestige Sunroofs via the dealer. One thing, I took mine to get the mechanism fixed a couple of years ago cos it used to stick and grind. Bloke doing it surprised me by saying the glass was faulty and that there had been a recall and he replaced it free. Still charged me $700 to fix the rest though😡

[ozscott]

I would definitely be suspicious of the sunroof. Mine has a Hollandia* in it. It sorta has drains, but they only go halfway down, and the body "channel" they drain through gets blocked if I drive past a dairy farm or something. The channel fills and hey presto, wet carpets.

* May be different. Dealer fitted, well Prestige Sunroofs via the dealer. One thing, I took mine to get the mechanism fixed a couple of years ago cos it used to stick and grind. Bloke doing it surprised me by saying the glass was faulty and that there had been a recall and he replaced it free. Still charged me $700 to fix the rest though😡

Thanks JT. Definitely no drain tubes (Webasto Hollandia 300) but I will run the hose over it again and see exactly where it is coming in. I had a twig in the seal that may have been the issue. Once all dried out I will re-test. Cheers

[AK83]

cheap(as in almost free) and easy check is to hose the rear pass door with vigour, and concentrating mainly on the front upper corner of the frame to seal area.

On my D2, I found tons of leaks at work when I first used their(works) pressure wash gun.

The upper frames can be loosened and pushed inwards(towards the seal) a tad to stop leaks around the seals.
You have to be extremely careful tho, and not do what I did with the front pass door and pushed it in a bit too far and subsequently jammed the door that it wouldn't open at all.
There was just enough pressure from the upper frame that the door mechanism wouldn't unlatch.
Once worked I worked it out, easy to fix.

My D2a needs this adjustment too. wind noise is a couple of orders of magnitude louder than the D2.

[RANDLOVER]

I agree with being careful about pressure washing the door tops, as they are only akin to 1 inch square metal tube. My D2 used to leak in those no touch jet wash type car washes, so I used to keep a cloth in the centre console and run it along the top of the driver's door in sync with the wash jet. It never leaked in the rai though, sometimes I'd find a bit of water on the front passenger floor mat after the car wash too.