I had a busy Saturday taking care of a laundry list of fixes for Xfire issues. I first did the sticky ignition key fix, and then tackled the Relay Control Module solder repair. Since those went so well I moved on to pulling the spoiler to check for the potential rust problem that I've been reading about on the forum. Here is what I found....

Driver's Side -





Passenger Side -





The O-ring seals weren't working to keep water out of the threads, but even if they had been OK rust still would have been forming due to water sitting in the mount pocket. It's just a terrible design.

I used a cordless drill with a small wire wheel to clean the rust off the spoiler mounts and bolts. Make sure you remove the torx bolt and clean up that area as well. I used a small brass brush to clean out the trunklid pocket as best I could without damaging the paint.





In order to keep water out of the pocket altogether, I decided to use clear silicone sealant and coated both the spoiler mounts and pockets prior to reassembly. Once the spoiler was bolted back on, I cleaned up the little bit of silicone that oozed out with rags and Q-tips. I don't see how moisture will be able to work it's way back in there now, so I'm satisfied that this problem won't return.



Also, while I had the inner trunk liner removed, I disconnected the emergency release cable assembly from the trunk latch. For those of us with roadsters, this can break and cause a trunk entry problem as Pizzaguy described so well in his post. I've been having occasional problems with the trunk lid latch, and although my emergency release wasn't broken like Pizzaguys was, I think it was causing problems and wanted it gone.

https://www.crossfireforum.org/forum/441770-post41.html

The moral of this story is don't postpone checking under your spoiler mounts for rust. Due to the lack of any decent gaskets in the mount pocket moisture will get inside and will cause rust.