Obviously the rain is passing through holes in the middle
of the windscreen and dashboard. :-)
I bet it is leaking in between the bottom edge of the windscreen glass
and the rubber weatherstrip, and then running under the dash pad.
(I have a similar leak on the outer part of the sides of the rubber
weatherstrip. The water runs down the inside of the windscreen pillars,
down the sides of the car just in front of the door, and behind the cardboard
trim pieces.)
I looked in the car parts store and saw a plethora of salves, balms,
and unguents meant for fixing leaky car windows. But I think the key
step in plugging the leak is THOROUGHLY cleaning out all the crud that
has gotten between the rubber and the glass over the years. Obviously
you have to remove the trim piece that goes over the rubber. Getting
it on again is tricky, and you need to do it right.
IMHO, by the time you have done all this work to (hopefully) fix the leak,
you could just as well have replaced the entire rubber. They are
not that expensive.
Hopefully somebody that has actually tried a windscreen replacement
can comment on the difficulty and risks of the task, and the quality
of the rubber pieces on the market.
Doug Braun
At 05:02 AM 9/19/00 -0500, you wrote:
>As those of you in the UK might have noticed by now, the weather is not what it
> was... Now that autumn is well and truly here, Daffy is spending her days
> waiting for me in the car park, being pounded with rain. My punishment for
> subjecting her to this abuse is that, when I pull away after she's been
> sitting for some time (even a spell at traffic lights will do this a bit), I
> get a dump of water on my left leg.
>
>Before I start crawling around trying to find out where it's getting in, is
> there a common place where water can get into the cabin to do this to you?
> The water appears to be falling from just about where the steering column
>goes
> under the dashboard, just to the left of the steering column (i.e. towards
>the
> centre of the car, Daffy being RHD).
>
>When I had Sammy (Samantha the Purple Panther, a Black Tulip MG BGT), there was
> a common problem with the heater box. For MGBs this was mounted in the
>engine
> bay, and there was a drain pipe to allow rain water that had entered the
> heater box to drain out. When this got blocked, the heater box filled up,
>and
> then drained the water out of the footwell vent, straight onto your ankle,
>the
> first time you took a corner. Solution - unblock the drain. I don't suppose
> there is a remedy equally simple on a Spit? The water does not seem to be
> coming from the heater box (it is my inside leg that is getting soggy - could
> look embarrasing if anyone spotted it...), but maybe it has collected in the
> tube to the windscreen vents, and is leaking from a hole in that? Or it is
> coming in through the rust around the windscreen surround, and somehow
>flowing
> round under the dashboard until it collects somewhere where it can fall on my
> leg from? Any ideas?
>
>I also get a leak between the windscreen top and the hood (soft-top to
> Americans?), when driving at speed in hard rain. I know the solution to this
> one - well, two solutions. First, don't drive at speed in the hard rain in a
> 22-year-old British convertible car. Second option, more practical, I may
> have to admit the summer is over, and it's time to swap to the hard-top for
> the next 6 months. Oh well, I guess this time comes round every year sooner
> or later.
>
>Oh, while I'm on the subject, one more damp weather anomoly. Daffy is the only
> car I know that, when you turn on the de-mister, the first thing that happens
> is that the windscreen mists up rapidly, so bad I can barely see where I am
> going - then she starts to de-mist, rather more slowly. Is this a Spit
> speciality that I should just accept, or is something wrong here that I
>should
> sort?
>
>Many thanks,
>
>Richard (damp) and Daffy (damper)
>
>P.S. I would appreciate it if replies could be sent directly to me, as well as
> the list, as I subscribe to the digest but do not want to have to wait a day
> to read any replies!
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