Keeping The Rain Out

[Amskeptic]

For over 20 (twenty) years, I have fought a water leak along the top trailing edge of the sliding door. Primarily after a car wash, I would see a little bead of water droplets down the inside of the glass. For over 20 years I have had to wash the inside of the sliding door glass after every car wash. I tried to readjust the latch. I bent the door a little to get the top surface closer to the body. I put monkey poo sealant behind the door perimeter seal. All to no avail.

Meanwhile, the seriously attacked vent window sealing was showing signs of more leaking during hard rains recently as well. I last had that vent window out in 2001 and I went to town on gloop and glop and poo and Permatex Aviation. Alas, I always had a little welling up right at the pivot.

Now for a relevant fable:

See, the sun and the wind had a contest one day because they were bored or something. "I can get that guy's coat off," boasted Windy McCain. So he attacked and blew and blew and blew quite a gale, but the guy just grabbed his lapels harder still. "Let me try," said Obamasun, and he just turned up that glorious sunshine, and wouldn't you know it? The guy just plain old took his coat off. Duh is the point.

Well, I tore the vent window out of the sliding door and had to clean years of goop and glop and sealant and poo off the frame, the seal, the opening, and the leading edge of the stationary window's seal. Once all was clean, I began to have . . . . an actual thought:

" I just KNOW Volkswagenwerk AG was not having so damn much difficulty with keeping water out of their cars! I grew up in them. They never leaked. They were snug and dry in the worst weather! WHY am I having SUCH a HARD TIME with THESE seals??" And I thought, WTFHSI, let's reassemble everything all clean and dry. So I did. And I thought this window was going to let the water just gush in. But it held up beautifully to a full frontal fusillade of Motel6 ice bucket assaults.

APPARENTLY, the new rule is to let the VW engineers figure out how to catch and course the water down, because that is what they did. Every groove in the window seal must be clean and clear. Every groove must be allowed to catch water and direct it down. Particularly along the bottom of the vent window. There are, unbeknownst to you and I, gutters that must be allowed to drain the water at the trailing edge of the vent windows. Just below the vent window frame at the pivot, there are little grooves molded into the rubber, they must be clean and clear.

I am amazed and appalled at my ignorance. So then I attacked the sliding door seal. What am I doing wrong here? Using the above theory, I cleaned the duct tape, the monkey poo, the channel where the seal goes, and reinstalled the seal along the top edge of the sliding door opening. And I just barely gleaned a noticeable re-alignment of the seal that allows the water to actually channel to the rear and drain down.

After 20 (twenty) years, the sliding door does not allow any water to leak into the interior.

Keeping water out of your car's interior (a very important thing), is not something to attack like the wind. It is something to consider how to get it to drain, to drain, to drain away before it builds up in unseen channels and trickles over the pinchweld. Like the sun, we must gently allow things to do their thing.
Colin

[twinfalls]

water leaks are hard to fight.
From my experience with boat hulls, house roofs and terraces,
There is no way to get results until you do know exactly where and how it seeps through.
A powerful trick is to put the leaking area under air pressure and to soak with soapy water. Bubbles will show the leak.
Venting is the way to remove moisture. Blocking air is no good, it keeps moisture and it will bring meldew.
Studying how it's designed inside a car door teaches a lot. Vapor barrier and drain holes are musts.

[Bookwus]

Hiya Colin,

Hmmmmmm.........why does this sound familiar?

I pulled my vent window (Yes, that vent window) out and replaced the seal you and I had worked with. Brand new seal and the pinch weld area was scrupulously clean. I used hand soap (with lanolin!) and Simple Green on the reinstall. Worked quite well.

And I spent some time considering what to do with those pesky rubber lips that kept on sliding off the frame runners when we were working on it. I wound up using Super Glue on the frame runners. That held the rubber lips in place quite nicely. Made installation (which not the most fun job) a lot easier.

[Amskeptic]

Hiya Colin,

Hmmmmmm.........why does this sound familiar?

I have no idea. . .

I used hand soap (with lanolin!) and Simple Green on the reinstall.

Leak-free???????????