Originally Posted by antonio311
Next, I do believe that the water is coming from the top of the doors and going down and behind the weather stripping. I still have not found a fix to this. There was a post from a gentleman from England who posted this is indeed where the water is getting in there, and he tried to explain how to seal up the place where it leaks. But I couldn't follow his fix.
In my post #252 I show in photo's 1 and 1a the area that the water is diverted into the inside of the door. They show evidence of water below the rectangular drain, underneath the trim piece and below the trim piece where the seal and door meet. Water running down this seam between door and seal puts it inside the car and it will eventually lie on top of the seal at the bottom of the door. Water likes to keep moving because of gravity, so if any slight gap exists it will flow through it. In this case it would be behind the seal. Some of it may keep going but some will just sit there because of surface tension.
Some will also follow the same path but on the outside of the seal and this flows down until it has to cross the gap between the channel sections. Some will pass over the gap and some will flow behind the seal.
Without taking the rubber moulding that contains the drain off, I cannot be sure that the water cannot get behind the seal at that point, I suspect it can. The seal goes into a blind hole on the molding, so that should be OK. I cannot see why water could not go behind the molding and directly into the seal channel. Unless it was caulked I cannot see why that could not happen.
The front edge of the door is similar but without the drain.
Although I had washed the car a few days before taking the pictures, I found no trapped water and the weather had been cool. Water had been around the seal as shown by the marks but none was trapped anywhere.
I found evidence of water marks behind the seal when I took it off, but no water and no rust.
Water can sit for a long time in tight spaces without drying as it has nowhere to go in a hurry.
I think a good spot to look for entrance is behind the rubber moulding with the drain in it. With no rust on my car I am not about to disturb it.
The front of the door should also be looked at.
Steve-UK should join the discussion, maybe he has some more thoughts, as he also did some of the early groundwork. My thanks to
andrew,
antonio311 and
mbepic et al for the heads up on this and their input.
No animals were harmed in any way in this production.