Re: Roof leaking

["Robert Rooney" <dmcvegas@xxxx>]

Where exactly is the water leaking in from? Is the headliner itself 
wet and water is dripping from from the fabric? Or is water dripping 
from between the headliners directly from the door seal?

If the headliner is wet and water is comming from in front of the 
visor where the windshield is then yes water is probably leaking in 
from the glass. I've had this problem on other cars and the solution 
was to shoot some silicone in between the wind shield (clear non-
shrinking GE silicone II from home depot works very well for this job 
and all sealing tasks in the service bulletin). You would have to 
remove the black trim piece at the top of the windshield to gain 
access, but I couldn't help you there on how to remove it. But on a 
side note, on the cars I've had that have had this problem, the car 
would get VERY noisy at higher speeds from the air rushing in.

If water is dripping from the headliner behind the visor and leads 
up to the door seal, then the problem is that your headliners 
are "wicking" water. If this is the case, check in the gutter between 
the door seal and the windshield to see if any cloth is sticking out 
from between the rubber seal and the fiberglass. If so you will need 
to remove the rubber to trim the cloth back. Other wise the cloth 
dips into the draining water and will suck the water up and channel 
it thru the cloth to drip inside. Just like a lantern wick does.

If water is dripping down from between the headliners where the 
door hits the rubber seal, one thing you can try would be to swap the 
inner door seals with each other. That helps a little bit. But what I 
ended up doing for my car after I switched seals was rather then push 
the rubber all the way down, leave it attached only a little bit, 
just enough to keep it in place. Then when you close the door, the 
door will push the seal down as far as needs to seal. Manually 
seating the seals by pushing them all the way down can create gaps.

Other then that, make sure that you refer to Service Bulletin ST-
33-12/81 on water leaks to cover all other areas. Make sure that 
after driving in wet weather that you pull up your floor mats to make 
sure your carpet is dry. If not you may need to seal additional items 
on the underside and/or in your wheelwell(s). Also keep the gutters 
clean of leaves and dirt.

-Robert
vin 6585



--- In dmcnews@xxxxxxxxxxx, Christian Williams <delorean@xxxx> wrote:
> Hi guys,
> 
> I haven't had my car long, and this past week was the first time I 
had
> ever driven it in rain. I discovered that when it's raining hard, 
quite a
> bit of water drips from the area near the passenger's sun visor. I 
just
> had the headliners replaced, so I certainly want to stop the leak 
before
> the foam rots out. 
> 
> As some of you guys might remember from the Chicago tech session, 
the
> passenger side of my car has been abused a bit. The tortion bar on 
that
> side is bent so badly that we couldn't get it to come out of the 
car. The
> T panel on the roof is bent up a bit on the passenger's side, and 
there's
> a crack that runs from the top to the bottom of the windshield. It 
looks
> like someone who didn't know what they were doing tried to adjust 
the
> door. 
> 
> Since the windshield is cracked, a new windshield is on my list of 
things
> to get. Do you think that some of the sealent that's used to hold 
the
> windshiled in might be cracked, allowing water to rush up the 
windshiled,
> underneath the black metal trim, and into the headliner? I'm 
thinking that
> this might be the case, and once the new windshield is fitted, that 
will
> solve the rain problem.
> 
> Also, passenger side seal E in this picture:
> https://ssl.internetcreations.com/grady/images/sm_door1.gif
> has quite a few holes in it. Or to put it better, it's almost as 
good as
> missing. The rest of the seals on the passengers side seem to be 
fine, so
> I'd assume that any rain that gets in through there would just be 
routed
> around and down to come out at the bottom of the door. Is this 
right, or
> might that water be able to get into the headliner near the sun 
visor? The
> water really seems to pour when I'm braking.
> 
> By the way, I never moved any further on installing the DVD 
player/GPS
> unit. If I'm sure that someone soon will make an all in one unit 
that will
> fit in the DeLorean's single stereo bay.
> 
> -Christian