At 12:47 AM 11/10/02 EST, Stanthefireman63@aol.com wrote:
>hey everybody,
> i'm 16 years old and my dad bought me a Bricklin a while ago (#2077)
>and i was wondering if anyone knew a way to keep the water out of my car. my
>first day in the rain was not too good. i guess there are holes around where
>the doors connect to the roof, and it leaks a little there, but it also
leaks
>water in the hatchback and through the doors. this is my first time using
the
>mailing list and i hope i can get some help. thanx.
J.R.
I see that you have already gotten some feed back. As has been pointed out
there are several places for the Bricklins to leak. Let me add my 2 cents.
1. Where is the water leaking into? The front, foot well, driver side or
pass side. The trunk area, etc.
2. John Lodge talked about the kickout strips. Most people probably don't
know what they are. They are additional pieces of rubber that are glued
to the door frame (before the seal is glued to the door) at the hinge
openings. Their purpose is to move the door seals out - towards the
body - to give a better seal at the hinges and to keep the water from
leaking into the roof around the hinges.
3. Another problem area is the plenumn, the area under the windshield, and
where the windshield wiper motor sits. There are 3 drain holes in it.
1 at both sides by the fenders, and 1 in the middle under the wiper
motor. Be sure these are cleaned out also. The plenumn area is prone
to rust. So you may have some pin holes where it has rusted through.
check this by: at night have someone shine a light into the plenumn
through the 2 screen areas and possibly by pulling the wiper motor.
While the light is being shined in, crawl in the car and look under the
dash for any signs of light. If you see any, then that's a leak.
a. The fix for this, depends on how many and how bad the leaks are. The
simplest fix, is to pull the screens, wiper motor and wiper linkages.
Clean it out the best you can, starting with compressed air. If you
see rusty metal, you may want to try and swab some "metal prep" or
Ospho into the entire area. Then using a paint like POR15 paint the
area. POR 15 is a Polyeurathane (sp) and will fill pin holes.
This treatment isn't a bad idea for everyone anywhat. Just be careful
not to plug the drain holes with the paint.
b. The other fix(s) are more complicated and would require pulling the
dash or the engine so you have access to the plenumn area. Again
depending on how bad the holes are you can try using some dyna-glass
fiberglass "bondo" and coat the area where the holes are from the
outside - either under the dash or behind the eng. Then paint. Or
you can make and weld in patch panels. This is a tough job, and
extream care must be taken.
4. Also in the plenumn area. During heavy rains, the water can't drain out
of the drain holes fast enough and it will collect in the plenumn area.
When you turn to the left, the water will slosh to the right side, and
over flow into the heater box. The fix for this is to build a damn in
the plenumn area. (John L. do you want to comment on this - maybe even
email me a picture if you all are in the process of doing it in the shop.
I'll put the picture in the magazine.)
5. In the cockpit, at the "A" pillar there are 2 square holes. These give
you access to the body mounting bolts and the rear fender anchor bolts.
There is a very small lip protrouding outwards around these holes. Water
coming back off the fenders and hood will go down the outside of the
"A" pillars and can flow into these boxes. To get access to these you
will have to pull the front fenders. If you do, you may want to put
some plastic over these holes to help keep the water out.
6. If water is coming in around the bottom of the door, and the side of the
seats you may want to lift the sill scuff plates. Then drill a 1/2" dia
hole in the sill plate. Then place the ball of a ballpeen (sp) hammer in
the hole and hit it with another hammer. You want to dimple the sill
plate to help the water drain. Then run a thick bead or silicon in the
from of a U around the hole and to both the inside and outside of both
the "A" and "B" pillar. This will help channel the water into the
dimpled hole and way from the carpet which will wick up the water.
(Again, John L. are you all doing this at your shop?)
Hope this helps.
John
John T. Blair WA4OHZ email: jblair@exis.net
Va. Beach, Va Phone: (757) 495-8229
48 TR1800 48 #4 Midget 65 Morgan 4/4 Series V
75 Bricklin SV1 77 Spitfire 71 Saab Sonett III
65 Rambler Classic
Morgan: www.team.net/www/morgan
Bricklin: www.bricklin.org
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