Wet boot carpet, leaking rear door seal.

[Lazy-Ferret]

After discovering the leak in the wheel arch to body seal under the rear seat, and fixing it, I was disappointed to discover that the carpet there was now even wetter!!! I decided to remove the boot carpet, and see where the dreaded tin worm had got to...

Lifting the carpet proved that the sound proofing was wet, in several areas, but the good news was, there was no real rust under it. Since the wettest spot seemed to be over the fuel tank cover, I thought it may be water being flicked up under there and seeping through. I took it off, but could not make up my mind, as it was damp all around the bolts, but I had no way of telling it that was water trying to get out, or water getting in. So I cleaned it all up anyway, and added a new layer of waterproof foam sealer round it, and then put it all back together.

I then had a good look round, but the only other water trace I could find came from the rear offside corner of the boot, from under the plastic trim below where the light cluster is...

I decided to "hope" that it was the tank cover, and see how things went, leaving the boot carpet out..

This morning it rained, and I had quite a few puddles in the boot, and upon further inspection, it seemed it was coming from under the O/S rear trim panel as I had dreaded the other day, so I set to work, in the rain, and removed the side trim. The water trail, went under there and then followed the corner of the body work round and towards where the door trim meets the plastic threshold cover.... Good news, not the light cluster... bad news... I have read about this, and it seems to be a common, but difficult problem, to solve.

I came in, and set to, having a search around on here, and sure enough, it was a common Terrano problem, but everyone had their own opinions on how to cure it. So I sat down with a cup of tea, and started reading lots and lots of posts on it...

The one thing that struck me, was a lack of Zippy's favourite.... Pictures... to help explain things....

Hopefully, I have taken the best of everyone's ideas, and done the lot, so once it rains again, I can let you know, if they all worked.

First up, was the top channel...
When I fitted the roof lights, I disturbed this, while trying to get all the drill swarf out, so this was high on the suspect list.

I forgot to take a picture before I started, so this is really an after picture!!

I carefully used a flat screwdriver to remove the plastic retaining poppers at each end, and then pulled the whole rubber channel off. At some point in the past, someone had stuck some form of sealant behind the ends, so first job was to clean that off the car and rubber channel.

I cleaned up the bodywork, where it all went, and used methylated spirit, to finish the job of.

On my car, there were at one time, 2 small sticky pads that I think were supposed to keep the end of the channel against the car, but these had no sticky on them, and I am guessing that was why someone had used sealer at the ends. The pads are nearly impossible to release from the rubber, and were just trying to make holes in the rubber as I tried, so I decided to leave them in place.

I find Silicon sealant a bit hit or miss on a car, and if you do ever need to try and remove it in the future, a real nightmare, so I decided to use the same stuff that is used to put fittings on a caravan. It's called Carafax mastic, and is the stickiest messiest stuff I have ever met, but the good thing is, it never fully sets, so remains flexible. You do need something like "sticky stuff remover" to get it back off again, should you ever need to remove it.

So, I put some on each end of the rubber channel

and then some along the top of where the channel fixes.

then carefully inserting the plastic pins back into their holes, to line things up, I pushed the rubber channel back into place. I then cleaned up any excess and stringy bits of the Carafax,

before closing the door, to push it all home...

Next the door seal...
Reading other posts, the best idea seemed to be to feed some tubing through the rubber seal, in order to pad it back out a bit. I had a length of Mircobore irrigation tubing left over from doing the green house, so used that.

First, again using a flat blade screw driver, I unclipped the rubber seal from all the way round the bottom of the door.

Take your time here, and do not be tempted to just pull on the rubber, as the rubber is very flexible, and the pin could pull through, but trying to get them back in again could be fiddly.

Once the seal was off, I cleaned it all up and dried it all off

Next, I went round every one of the small air holes in the rubber seal, and squeezed some silicon lubricant into it. I use the Wickes Gutter lubricant, as it is easy to get hold of, and reasonably priced. I then wiped over the tube I was going to insert with the same silicon lubricant. I picked one of the air holes, just below the window on the outside edge of the door, and started to feed the pipe in. The hole expands really easily, so no need to make it any larger.

At this point, I was originally just going to put the pipe in the bottom half of the door, but decided in the end to do the whole seal. You will find that the top corner on the hinge side, is already padded out with something, so you will not be able to poke the pipe past there. I opted to carry on pushing the tube up to it, and then cutting it to the correct length, using the other end, pushed it back round to the top of the door. As I said, the hole in the seal expands easily, and with the silicon lubricant, easily accepted the two bits of tube going in side by side.

It does take a while to feed it right round, and getting the final loop in was interesting, but basically, folding the rubber seal back on itself, then pushing the pinched over loop of tube in, sorted it all.

I then wiped both the seal, where it sits against the door, and the door, where the seal sits with methylated spirit, to make sure that was nice and clean.

I then ran a bead of Carafax round the bottom of the door, using the corner where the seal sits on the door as a guide.

When re-fitting the seal, make sure you get your finger on the head of the popper, squashing the seal, otherwise, the poppers may try to push inside of the rubber, and would be a pig to recover, especially with all that Carafax stringing all over the place. I started at the 1st popper, on the hinge side of the door, and pushed the poppers in, one at a time, until they were all home. Do give each one a little tug after you have pressed it home, as sometimes they felt like they had "Popped", but came back out.

I then again cleaned up any surplus, or stringy bits of Carafax, and wiped the exposed part of the seal over with silicon lubricant, before making sure the door would still close properly. In my case, it was fine, but I did read some people needed to adjust the door catch, as the door was only closing onto the safety catch, not the whole way.

Lastly, the plastic door threshold trim panel.

I use this plastic bit of trim to run various cables from one side of the car to the other, so did not want to fix this down with anything semi-permanent, but if this does not work, then I will take the foam off, and put Carafax in the same location as the foam.

To do the foam, I drew around the plastic trim, and then used the waterproof foam sealer, along this line, equally spaced either side of the trim edge, and made sure to get it to go up over the seam edge, and get right into the corner.

As you can see in the picture, I actually ran 2 bits, as the first bit I ran was before I drew round the plastic trim, and realised it was too far under the edge to make a good seal.

I then re-fitted the trim panel, squashing the foam under it's edge.

I just have to wait for the rain to start again now, and hope for no more puddles in my boot.

Hope this helps someone in the future.

 

[solarman216]

Had the same problem with the wifes car when we first got it, silicon did not stay stuck to the rubber, then tried non setting roofing mastic, that has held till now but getting wet in the boot again, but lasted 4 years or so, your stuff looks the bees nees, think I have some in the barn will have to have a look for it, never came up with a use for it cos it did not seem to have the right description of what it is on the tube, Rick

 

[dave123]

I had the same trouble I used tiger seal on the plastic step plate and I tried putting tubing in the door rubber seal but it still leaked . so I took it back out and if you look at the top of the door there is a channel where the seal suppose to sit in somebody must of had a leak before and they used sealant on it and that was causing it to leak because it wasn't sit in the channel right . so I clean all the sealant out and removed the tubing because when the door was shutting it was popping out of the channel and used a flat screw driver and fitted it properly and only had the tubing around the bottom catch side corner . since then it has stopped leaking and its been dry since . even in all that heavy rain we have just had . which was the best test I could have wished for.

 

[Sweety]

Great post mate:beerchug: still got to sort mine out but my wet patch is just left of centre on the N/S but did notice 2 drip marks down the back window either side of the high level brake light so not sure if it's just run off when the door has been opened in the rain or got a leak coming in the:nenau seems to only happen when part on our drive as it's on a slight slope

 

[clivvy]

excellent write up! I used carafax as well, horrible to work with but as you said, doesn't set and is flexible.:thumbs

 

[Lazy-Ferret]

Thanks guys...

Luckily the seal was fine in the channel round the top of the door, just putting the bit back in that came out while I was poking the pipe in was bad enough, would not want to re-do the whole top half of the door...:doh

Yes, that Carafax is weird stuff, you get this feeling of dread when you get it out, as you know you will spend almost as much time cleaning up after using it, as you do, doing the job in the first place, but when ever I have used it on the caravans in the past, it has never had the slightest leak. It's runny enough to spread, but stiff enough to fill any gaps. The only thing is, it is not a fixing in it's own right, like Silicon, just a waterproof gap filler.

 

[Lazy-Ferret]

Update...

Well, we had 4mm of rain this morning, and I still have a dry boot.... Result...

Now just a case of running the VAX over the carpet while it is out, and I can put my carpet back in...

 

[Thomas-the-Terrano2]

great thread, going to apply these tricks.

the microbore, is tat a standard size, just seem some with diameter 6.3mm outer
and 3.6 mm inner bore. would that do? was 15m for £5.50

 

[wildbri]

When l found my boot carpets wet l cured it by brushing Waxol all along the rear door seal.

Bri

 

[Lazy-Ferret]

great thread, going to apply these tricks.

the microbore, is tat a standard size, just seem some with diameter 6.3mm outer
and 3.6 mm inner bore. would that do? was 15m for £5.50

Not sure if it is all a standard size, but that the size for the stuff I used.

 

[glanrichbex]

Take off the top outer gutter trim and tiger seal or sikaflex it back on so the water runs down the sides of the door. Buy a new door seal and problem over :thumbs

I tried threading pipe inside the seal but that causes the seal to loose its flexibility and jump out of position on the top left corner when the door is closed letting in rivers It returns to the correct position when the door is open :doh

Using tiger seal or silicone to seal up the lower plastic floor plate doesn't work because if the water has got that far then its already in the car and its only going to gather behind the plate it until it overflows into the boot.

With the greatest respect and hats off to you for your innovation and ingenuity :thumbs but I'm afraid to say that through bitter experience and frustration with many of my hours wasted trying to fix this problem that unless you get a new door seal the repair is short lived

 

[Thomas-the-Terrano2]

well have sealed top seal down.

then used pipe inside door seal, all way round though in sections,
shut door to find it wouldnt err shut, it was keeping door off lock

as done in sections removed one down side where lock is better but
still wouldnt shut properly so removed bottom piece.

then shuts properly. so top one in place, comes down lock side to
first breath hole, and left sections in down hinge side, guessing
pull in better with hinges.

for bottom plastic plate got it sealed with duct tape full width so any
water coming down inside frame, deflects under door.

have to see how it goes, getting cheesed off with whole wet ingress
want to stop having more frost in inside than out....

 

[Mav96]

have got to do mine, I just took my carpet out, its so manky its gone straight in the bin. the rain defo gets in more on hinge side like others on here. :nenau

 

[solarman216]

have got to do mine, I just took my carpet out, its so manky its gone straight in the bin. the rain defo gets in more on hinge side like others on here. :nenau

So you need a replacement carpet? Rick

 

[Mav96]

Yes Rick but needs to be clean as I use all 7 seats during summer months, unlike most of you lol, was going to get some carpet off the bay when I got some spare pennies

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk

 

[Thomas-the-Terrano2]

have got to do mine, I just took my carpet out, its so manky its gone straight in the bin. the rain defo gets in more on hinge side like others on here. :nenau

wasnt aware of that but was looking at shape of frame there, and can see how much gets in the way of the draining water, like the hinges etc places where it would bounce or sit there and work way in.