PHo

hey im in on this. mine does the same and tbh i too just put it down to the 'character' of the car and owning a roadster.

would love to sort it tho with winter closing faaaast.

ive also heard that it could be the windows have dropped and dont create a good enough seal altho i think mine are fine, i think some grease and if that dont work then try the catch trick.

Chinook

Personally, I don't fold the roof until its dry. Don't know if its paranoia but I don't it does it any good to be packed up wet.

Dracoro

Even if I wait for the roof to dry, the water is still the frame so will still leak when roof lowered.

kmcknight2001uk

I had the same issue on the passenger side. The metal channel would fill up with water and as soon as I drove off, water would literal poor all over the passenger seat like a tap from the gap between the two metal supports where the roof folds.

This is what I did:
You'll notice that that each side of the roof are two rubber seals (split in two so the roof can fold). The first section at the top has a tiny screw to keep it in place. I removed the screw and carefully peeled back the rubber seal away from the meta channel.

I noticed that my rubber seal had split into two sections (should have been one) so I glued them together using black witch (wetsuit glue) and left to set over night (over 24hrs ideally).

You'll notice the exposed surface of the roof where you peeled off the seal (near where you removed the screw) looks like it had some sort of foam that has obviously deteriorated over time.

I basically patched the opening of the metal channel with some single sided foam tape in an 'L' shape across the top and along (2cms) side of the meta channel. Don't apply too much foam tape as you'll create a gap. Don't worry if it isn't neat as long as its a barrier for the water to be stopped and drain away as normal.

I then re-attached the rubber seal and re-screwed back in place onto the roof making sure it was on tight. Watch out as the rubber around the screw head is very delicate (you may want to put a thin washer around this to prevent further damage caused by the twisting of the screw head), or even apply a thin layer of witch glue to add an extra layer protection (if possible).

So far (touch wood) the leak hasn't reappeared...

Hope that helps, but remember 'single sided foam tape' is your friend, and don't worry if it doesn't stick to the roof as it'll be sandwiched between the actual roof and the rubber seal.

More Info can be found here with images

Hope the helps others here.
Keith.

Dracoro

Thanks, I'll have a look at it over the weekend.

j8mie

Well I'm really pleased I'm not the only person with this problem. I'll give kmcknight2001uk's method a try this weekend. The Doris is getting fed up of getting water poured all over her.

s2konroids

good stuff Keith.

It is a royal PITA, i thought i solved it but the leaking has reared its ugly head AGAIN!.

When you say 'I noticed that my rubber seal had split into two sections (should have been one) so I glued them together using black witch (wetsuit glue) and left to set over night (over 24hrs ideally)' - do you mean glue either side of the rubber seal where it splits at each end?

kmcknight2001uk

I'll try and take some photos tomorrow of what I did. It'll make make sense when you see it.

As for the seal being split (it isn't a split in the rubber BTW), it seems it comes in two sections along its full length (from what I could make out it looked like the original glue had failed and hence the two sections were coming apart). I had a quick check on my drivers side and it seemed to be as one (very solid with no sign of the sections coming apart), so I just applied black witch glue along the full length where it had split/come apart. I then carefully put it back together, re-screwed the seal back to its normal position taking care that I had pushed in the seal back into the metal channel. I then put the roof up and locked it in place as normal. This gave a very tight fitting and kept pressure on where I had glued it. I then left it for 24hrs before patching the rest with a small mount of foam tape.

It really was a simple process and a quick and easy fix.

Hope that helps!

K.

PHo

right, little project for tonight is trying to find if this is what's happening to me!

thanks for the info and hopefully this is the same with mine so hopefully i can fix the bugger!

kmcknight2001uk

Right, as promised; pictures say a thousands words.
So, as a series of images will show what I did to stop that PITA leak.
You don't have to put up with it.
The job is really easy and a quick fix (around 15mins actually work).

Good Luck!

Here goes:












I hope that puts what I've said in the previous thread into context!

Regards,
Keith.