Club126UK
Fiat 126 Chat => Fiat 126 Mechanical Problem Solving => Topic started by: mintex on December 03, 2015, 09:29:27 PM
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Well with all this rain lately and no garage ive found out my front windscreen is leaking.
It is on the left side as ive pulled the cover back off the dash and i can see water slowly coming in.
I think it is also on the drivers side as its dripping from the steering column plastic cover?
Might try too seal it for now until i can get a new seal, anyone know where i can get one for a Bis please?
Cheers
Dave
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Can't help with the seal I'm afraid, but there are a couple of things you might like to try. The obvious one is Seek 'n' Seal (is it still made?) which is OK for very fine cracks and leaks, but more robust is - and this is not a joke - building sealants. I first came across this some years ago with Scimitars, and believe me there is no body like a fibreglass body for problems is sealing in the windows.
So, high adhesion, high elasticity, high quality. Do NOT attempt this with your own brand BnQit "caulk". Use Dow Corning (or if you must, Unibond, but IMHE Corning are the best) silicone sealant.
799 Clear glazing. You can try the clear sanitary, 785, but this has anti-bacterial ingredients and is intended for indoor use, whereas 799 is specifically for outdoors, and is UV-resistant. A previous owner had applied this very nicely along the entire roofline of one Scimitar I bought. I had the car for about two weeks before I even realised it was there, so it is *very* translucent, and applied properly it is almost undetectable.
The alternative for a black seal, if you want to fill in the cracks on the outer edges of the corners too, is 791. Again, it's specifically for outdoor use, UV stabilised etc. It tends to sink slightly on curing, so to fill larger cracks you may need to build it up in several layers. For black it's probably best to mask around the edge of the seal on the paintwork before applying, then you can smooth down the uncured material (generous bit of spit on your finger is best) without worrying about smearing it onto the bodywork.
All from Screwfix, around £7 or less per standard mastic gun tube (310ml?). Some also from Toolstation, though for some reason Toolstation don't carry as wide a range, which is a shame as generally they are cheaper.
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Thanks for the reply and options you've given me, i might try one of them first and see if it stops it.
The rubber itself looks ok, its not got any cracks in it but it doesn't fit really snug to the body in places, mostly on the corners.
Looks like this is my job for the weekend then :good:
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Can I just add be careful filling the corners with sealer as this is where the drains are for any water getting under the seal and you don't want to block them
Have you checked the screen drain tubes to make sure they aren't blocked they are located under the bonnet at the outer edges under the scuttle
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no ive not checked them, i plan too have a good look over it this weekend if i can so thanks for the heads up, i will check them too :good:
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Whilst all the above advice/help is valid, and a good fix.....new windscreen rubbers can be had....but at a price!
http://www.126fan.sk/eshop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=34&products_id=571
:)
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See my post here....
http://club126uk.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=10008.0
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In each water drain is a little plastic plug with a tiny hole in it to let the water through. My windscreen man took the whole plug out to make the water escape hole bigger and water flowed through it no problem. No leaks now.
I bought my windscreen seal from Ritz, and it was VERY expensive!
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Can you see these drain tubes or am i best taking the window out as ive just looked and i think i can see one of the tubes on the drivers side but i cant spot the one on the passengers?
And where do the exit please, behind the front wings?
I plan too take the windscreen out tomorrow if its not raining and give the seal and things a check over, if mines not good do you still have that seal for sale if i need it Bambino :) ?
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I understand the intuitive wish to have the properly functioning drain holes, but these can be a nightmare to resurrect. I've never attempted on a Fiat, but I have on Scimitars and a Jag XJ, where they are notorious for causing corrosion in the inner wings.
There are two schools of thought on water leaks - and this was told to me by an engineer working on the Channel Tunnel construction back in the early 1990s, where they know a thing or two about keeping water out of things.
The first is, you assume there will be a leak, then engineer some system to allow the leaked water to drain. This is typically used on car windows. The second is, you don't worry about draining water away, because you use very high performance sealing technology to make sure no water can ever get in to start with.
You might think that second choice is naive wishful thinking, but in fact every single one of us uses it every day - sealed wet areas in our kitchens and bathrooms. Allegedly, it is also the approach taken on the British end of the tunnel. The French took the other approach.
The point is, from an engineering point of view both strategies are perfectly sound and viable, but obviously each has its drawbacks. You might think as I said that to get a 'perfect' seal is impossible, but as our flexing fibreglass shower trays daily demonstrate, to get a seal that is 'good enough' is perfectly viable.
As for drain tubes, you might take water away from the window, but then what do you do with it? The tube will never be perfectly dry; the water channel around the window will always be damp; debris can block it, etc etc, and then corrosion sets in not at the window but, as in the case with the Jags, in some other place that requires vastly more complex and expensive repair (in this case, replacing the entire front wings).
So, although ignoring the OE design and using sealant all around might be viewed as a bodge, and certainly isn't 'original', that doesn't mean that it is an inferior engineering solution.
Car window design like any other item is a product of its time, and of its mass production technology and costs. Sealant technology has come a long way since the Fiat assembly line of the 1950s, when these bodywork details were set in stone.
We readily accept windscreens bonded in place on a modern car using modern adhesives and sealants. Why not also on a classic Fiat?
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Can you see these drain tubes or am i best taking the window out as ive just looked and i think i can see one of the tubes on the drivers side but i cant spot the one on the passengers?
And where do the exit please, behind the front wings?
I plan too take the windscreen out tomorrow if its not raining and give the seal and things a check over, if mines not good do you still have that seal for sale if i need it Bambino :) ?
The 2 drain tubes are in the bottom left and bottom right corners of the windscreen, and you need to take the screen out to see them really. If you held one in your hand its only about 1cm long.
They are just little white plastic plugs with a small hole in them to let water through. The hole in the plug is small and so they block very easily.
They drain water out of the two water traps (the lowest point ) and it simply goes down into the front boot compartment (which has its own drains).
My windscreen man said that doing windscreens on this era of Fiats in the 80's and 90's it was standard practice to simply pull the plugs out and throw them away leaving a hole about 8mm wide instead of 2mm wide so it never blocks up again.
Yes, that windscreen seal is still available if you need it.
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Well it was dry today, well it stopped raining for a few hours so i removed the windscreen for a look why it leaks.
Someone has tried before and have used silicone seal.
I have a motorhome and went too the local accessories shop this morning i found some sikaflex that bonds and seals so i bought a tube too see if this cures the leak. Told me in the shop they use it on motorhomes and caravans and its very good stuff....i hope so.
This is a time lapse video of me taking the window out lol :D
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVtHPBl90DQ[/youtube]
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Well done ;)
Hope the refitting goes well :thumbup
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Its back in the car now, went in quite easy.
I used the old string method. I will take the cover off it tomorrow and wait for the rain, that's the next test so fingers crossed :)
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Well ,its been raining today and so far so good, its bone dry :)
I went with drcdb's idea that sealing the window so water doesn't get under the rubber. The reason is that when i removed the window the corners where the drain holes are where wet and rusty so in the cold wet winter months i can imagine this area never really drying out.
For the most of us with the car in a garage this wont be a problem and it probably will be dry but with me being without a garage at the minute (just put the footings in for it) mines will be outside this winter, i do have a cover but its not the same lol :)
Anyway i will keep an eye out for the next few days and make sure before i put the glove box bit and the front carpet back, looks promising though :D