2005 Convertible Rear Light Cluster collecting Water

[Tregar]

Morning All!

Resurrecting the vert from the winter slumber and opened the boot and a LOAD of water poured out from the right hand side light cluster. If I can find the time I'll try taking it apart today to try to find the leak but does anyone know what the likely cause will be? Can't see any cracked or broken glass/plastic but guessing a rear seal will be involved somewhere!

Many Thanks,

Terry

[Max Headroom]

WOW!

I never had any problem in that area and I was forever treating mine to snow-foam and the pressure washer, polus the car spent most of its life outdoors unless I was away down-route/overseas.

I can only think that this is a dried-up seal somewhere or that a drain somewhere nearby is blocked.

If nothing has cracked, I think I would replace all suspect seals and give them a liberal coating of silicone grease on assembly. (silicone grease is waterproof and won't harm rubber or plastics that it comes into contact with)

[sgould]

I seem to remember that there was an issue with some of the rear light units leaking around the lens.  The black sealant/bonding failed. But it wasn’t common.

[Tregar]

Taken the light cluster out, only held in by 3 nuts. The unit appears to be a sealed unit, except mine wasn't! In fact most of the "glue" wasn't doing anything at all. I managed to get it apart (I could see no way to get the water out otherwise) but cracked the lens in one spot while applying some gentle pressure.

So I can run a bit of sealant round it and put it back together again EXCEPT.... There is a double skin sandwich on the lens part. The water has ingressed into it and there is no way I can dry that out!

So Fleabay to the rescue, seems to be plentry of Passenger side lights but few Drivers side but I've sourced a replacement.

Terry

[Max Headroom]

Try and dry it out on a radiator.

We did this with aircraft windscreens when there was an ingress of moisture. Normally the windscreens have some tubes that contained silica gel attached to them that 'breathe' through the silica gel crystals and keep the air inside the screen dry (they were double skinned windows in the cockpit on the HS125). But sometimes in really bad weather or if the silica gel wasn't changed soon enough for fresh stuff, moisture would get in and 'steam up' the screen. The fix was to leave it on a warm radiator for a day or so, and while it was warm fit a fresh tube of silica gel crystals.

As for re-sealing I have discovered a really good adhesive/sealant HERE Not only does this stuff seal, it bonds things together really well. I've used it instead of rivets on some strengthening plates on the inside of my vintage car mudguards, where I didn't want crud getting behind the metal or rivets spoiling the lines of the mudguards