Red Pepper Racing

So... Everytime I wash the car (85 si) or it rains, I get a nice little flood action in the back of the thing. Before I rip the car apart I figured I'd ask if someone else has seen this before. It seems as if maybe its coming in through the side rear windows? Anyone???

check to see if the gasket around the hatch isn't tore or out of place. and if it has the little water nozzle at top make sure if isn't loose. if it is pull your headliner and tighten it up. while you have the headliner out check the drain tubes from the sunroof to make sure they're not loose. oh and the gaskets behind your tailights. all these areas are prone to leaking over time i'd check these first before the cancer sets in.

Sunroof drain tubes have shrunk over the years on mine and pulled out of the rubber parts fitted to the body to drai outside of the body.
Looking for pics to post
Jeff

Yeah I noticed mine have to but I have fixed them... I'm leading toward the taillights since I just looked and they are wet onthe backside. I can see where the water runs down the channel into thestupid things... I figure some silicone may work there. I'm gonna hose the car down this eve and check where its coming from, hopefully have a location so I can devise a solution.
Thanks

thats funny, mine gets wet behind the seats when i drive in the rain. but i have no carper and live in AZ = i don't care much

Yeah, Mine get wet behind the seats also (well, 87si #1 does, thats the only one I drive in the rain). I think mine leaks in multiple areas. During really heavey TX rains (and especialy when I park on a slant). The sunroof drains are too small to take away the water and it floods on top of the headliner. Then it runs onto the gray plastic upper interrior until it finds its way to the floor. I could see the river trails in the dust when I pulled the headliner and plastic parts out one day.

The other for me are the real tail lights. I popped the little utility panels on the rear panel where the latch is and could see the water in droplet form above the tail light, light bulbs (not the bulbs themselves, but the rubber foam seal above)

Then I have a very small leak coming in down by my feet. I think its a bad windsheild replacement job.

My fix is just to not drive them in the rain anymore. But this may not be practicle for others.

Dave

Oh, you could use some tape and tape off the sunroof on the next rain to root cause. And once, I had a dodge shelby (87) and had similar foam rear lights. I put grease on the interface rubber and bolted in back in place. I did this so I could remove it easy. I'm sure there's some other compound to use. Try removing the taillights and look for the water trail between the body on foam of the light.

Its always better to ID the source before you throw $$ at it.

Yeah so I found about a 2 inch section above the taillight where the seam sealer has cracked away and is taking on water. Really weird place. I siliconed it up so we will se what happens. I also resealed the taillights. I'm gonna hose it tomorrow to see if the problem goes away. Also I found the drains in the rear quarters clogged with mud so that wasn't working.

Oh yeah, I remeber the rear drains on mine clogging. I think I cleared it w/ wire, then cut some of the rubber off at the water exit point to help prevent future drain problems. But the biggest problem I had was parking on a hill, then all the rain would pool at a corner and overflow into the headliner

d

For the rear tail lights you can buy some wetsuit material or similar and cut yourself a copy of the worn out oem gasket. I also used silicon on the body side to ensure no water ingress. It seems to work fine. JS

Yeah I used some silicone and retraced some of the body seams at the back of the car under the taillights where it looks like water was seeping through... seems to have worked so far, we will see when we get another big rain... that outta not be for a while but we'll see... Thanks All