We were discussing rear leaking screens on the 'who's doing what maintenance' thread recently and it was getting a bit hijacked so I thought I'd post my latest into a new thread.
I pulled the screen out of the green one and tried to clean it up. Not nice. I put it back in dry to begin with and so far it's never left the barn. So I can't tell you about that one. At the weekend I pulled the grey one onto the drive and took the screen out. Last time that was done was to have the tinting applied. The seal was in much better nick with only a couple of areas of mastic. Now, I have to say that given this lack of sealant, I'd have to say I believe that the factory didn't use goop. Just the magic of the seal. The grey one didn't leak nearly as badly as the green one and I figure I could clean this seal up to be better than the green one (are you following this) and put this into the green one as an upgrade. So what about the grey one. Well this is the interesting bit. I had a brand new seal on the shelf and I figured I'd fit that. Well, to describe it as being slightly tighter than the used ones would be an understatement. Flip, it was tight just getting it onto the glass! I really needed some Fairy Liquid on there. Again I should have used some lube to get it into the tailgate too. That was tight and a really nice snug fit. It's been raining the last two days and I went out today and opened the tailgate. Dry as a bone. No leak at all. Now I am not saying Hallelujah this is the cure but it would seem that a new seal works better than an old one. No kidding. I'd rather not glue the thing in but I will if I have to. I'll run it for a while and see what happens. If it's a good un then I might just buy another and stick it on the green one and be done.
Whilst in there I did find some early rust on the seam. I rubbed that down and killed it with Dinitrol, rubbed it again and gave it another dose. I filled with a bit of filler then primed and sprayed it over. I am no bodywork specialist so what I did was mask off the sill under the window leaving a 10mm gap then blended the mask into the vertical sides of the frame. I sprayed this gloss exterior black to finish it before fitting the glass back in. I wouldn't say I was delighted but which would you rather have. Rust or no rust and a bit of discrete rattle can. Pain can be done again, but once the rust has taken hold, tail gates go down hill rapidly and my inspection showed this to be otherwise very very solid throughout. Effectively this is a bit like adding eye-liner to the tailgate. Most people won't see it. I am going to get some vinyl pinstripe probably and put that over the top to mask how crap I am at this sort of thing.
I pulled the screen out of the green one and tried to clean it up. Not nice. I put it back in dry to begin with and so far it's never left the barn. So I can't tell you about that one. At the weekend I pulled the grey one onto the drive and took the screen out. Last time that was done was to have the tinting applied. The seal was in much better nick with only a couple of areas of mastic. Now, I have to say that given this lack of sealant, I'd have to say I believe that the factory didn't use goop. Just the magic of the seal. The grey one didn't leak nearly as badly as the green one and I figure I could clean this seal up to be better than the green one (are you following this) and put this into the green one as an upgrade. So what about the grey one. Well this is the interesting bit. I had a brand new seal on the shelf and I figured I'd fit that. Well, to describe it as being slightly tighter than the used ones would be an understatement. Flip, it was tight just getting it onto the glass! I really needed some Fairy Liquid on there. Again I should have used some lube to get it into the tailgate too. That was tight and a really nice snug fit. It's been raining the last two days and I went out today and opened the tailgate. Dry as a bone. No leak at all. Now I am not saying Hallelujah this is the cure but it would seem that a new seal works better than an old one. No kidding. I'd rather not glue the thing in but I will if I have to. I'll run it for a while and see what happens. If it's a good un then I might just buy another and stick it on the green one and be done.
Whilst in there I did find some early rust on the seam. I rubbed that down and killed it with Dinitrol, rubbed it again and gave it another dose. I filled with a bit of filler then primed and sprayed it over. I am no bodywork specialist so what I did was mask off the sill under the window leaving a 10mm gap then blended the mask into the vertical sides of the frame. I sprayed this gloss exterior black to finish it before fitting the glass back in. I wouldn't say I was delighted but which would you rather have. Rust or no rust and a bit of discrete rattle can. Pain can be done again, but once the rust has taken hold, tail gates go down hill rapidly and my inspection showed this to be otherwise very very solid throughout. Effectively this is a bit like adding eye-liner to the tailgate. Most people won't see it. I am going to get some vinyl pinstripe probably and put that over the top to mask how crap I am at this sort of thing.
.... did you say you took something off that wasn't causing a problem then by doing so you created another one
