Thread: What happened to your D3/D4 today?

One thing that’s been a little odd of recent, is a bit of dampness on the passenger side roof lining and a pillar trim.

It’s only been happening when parked nose down, and I had suspected the mounting points for my light bar may be allowing rain to enter.

Today I pulled the A-pillar trim and went searching….

I removed the light bar mount and covered the holes..
Nope, that wasn’t the leak.
Then I poured water onto the windscreen top - same, no leak.

So I poured water onto the roof just in front of the step up… Bingo we have a leak.

So, needing to remove the roof rack to have the paint repaired on the roof (pic)


I stripped all the rails off - lots of detritus under there! And went and sprayed the roof down at the local car wash.

Water poured into the vehicle!

Turns out the seam sealer has let go on the roof (and later searches found its becoming more common as they age)

Here’s the culprit!


I’ll be cleaning it up tomorrow and resealing it then sending the vehicle in to have the roof resprayed.

Interesting post. Thanks.
Few questions:
1. What will you use for sealing?
2. Will you be able to scrape out the existing sealant?
3. Why paint the whole roof? The plastic strip will cover your repairs.

I periodically remove my ProSpeed rack and the plastic strip and clean out the channel and threads. I'm due to do this again and will pay particular attention to the sealing!

Originally Posted by DieselLSE

Interesting post. Thanks.
Few questions:
1. What will you use for sealing?
2. Will you be able to scrape out the existing sealant?
3. Why paint the whole roof? The plastic strip will cover your repairs.

I periodically remove my ProSpeed rack and the plastic strip and clean out the channel and threads. I'm due to do this again and will pay particular attention to the sealing!

Gday!

1. Sika 227 White
2. Will be cleaning it up and covering over.
3. See pic above for big patch of paint missing middle of roof

Originally Posted by Tombie

I’ll be cleaning it up tomorrow and resealing it then sending the vehicle in to have the roof resprayed.

Oooh! What colour?!?

Originally Posted by Tombie

One thing that’s been a little odd of recent, is a bit of dampness on the passenger side roof lining and a pillar trim.

It’s only been happening when parked nose down, and I had suspected the mounting points for my light bar may be allowing rain to enter.

Today I pulled the A-pillar trim and went searching….

I removed the light bar mount and covered the holes..
Nope, that wasn’t the leak.
Then I poured water onto the windscreen top - same, no leak.

So I poured water onto the roof just in front of the step up… Bingo we have a leak.

So, needing to remove the roof rack to have the paint repaired on the roof (pic)


I stripped all the rails off - lots of detritus under there! And went and sprayed the roof down at the local car wash.

Water poured into the vehicle!

Turns out the seam sealer has let go on the roof (and later searches found its becoming more common as they age)

Here’s the culprit!


I’ll be cleaning it up tomorrow and resealing it then sending the vehicle in to have the roof resprayed.

Interesting discovery thanks for sharing and I think the collection of often wet dirt that settles in there doesn’t help. You can pop these trims up from the front edge and hose out the rubbish in there as a good habit to do when washing the car from time to time.

Originally Posted by Tombie

Turns out the seam sealer has let go on the roof (and later searches found its becoming more common as they age)

Obviously the use of a vehicle would have some impact on that but I'm wondering if your very dry climate has an affect? My vehicle has been in the tropics for at least 12 years or possible more. It's airframe total time in service is over 18 years now (and 375K km) and no signs of leaking in even the heaviest tropical downpours.

Originally Posted by veebs

Oooh! What colour?!?

Refrigerator white

It’s almost always covered by the Prospeed rack, so you cannot really see it anyway!

Just bringing it back to its former glory as I have no intention of moving it on.

Originally Posted by Narangga

Obviously the use of a vehicle would have some impact on that but I'm wondering if your very dry climate has an affect? My vehicle has been in the tropics for at least 12 years or possible more. It's airframe total time in service is over 18 years now (and 375K km) and no signs of leaking in even the heaviest tropical downpours.

It’s only a new development in the last couple of months.

Upon further cleaning and examination it looks like it’s just shrinkage, and the high dry temps we have around here wouldn’t help it for sure.

Will only take 10 minutes to reseal it and be good for another 13 years I’d expect!