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Water in the trunk

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Old Jul 9th, 2020, 20:25   #1
142 Guy
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Default Water in the trunk

I figured that if anybody would be in the know about water ingress issues in a 140, it would be UK owners so here goes!

I did a fairly extensive resto on my 1971 142 which included replacing both wells in the trunk behind the rear wheels. The reproduction wells came with flat spots where the rubber drain grommets / plug things would be located; but, no hole for the plugs. Those holes had previously required constant rust maintenance on the car, so I decided not to cut them open, in part because the trunk was getting a new gasket and the panels would all be aligned and everything (almost everything as it turns out) was going to be re seam sealed. As such the trunk should be dry, right?

Shortly after getting the car back together, I discovered that the trunk was accumulating quite a bit of water in both wells after heavy rains and car washes. Water does not appear to collect anywhere else in the trunk. The tank area remains dry. Testing with a garden hose and checking showed that the biggest source of water was from around the drain box for the extractor vent under the rear windshield. During the resto work we had missed the fact that the seam sealer at both ends of the drain box (above where the drain hoses attach) had contracted and pulled away from the body allowing water to drain out the ends and into the trunk. It was a pain to fix with the car upright (it would have been so easy when it was on the rotisserie); but, I pried off the original seam sealer and completely resealed the box. Subsequent hose testing showed that the drain box exterior was dry and the water collection rate in the wells was significantly reduced; but, still not eliminated.

Since sealing the drain box I have tried various things in search of a dry trunk. These include removing and carefully reseating the gasket in its channel in the trunk lid, sealing all the screws in the aluminum trim plate at the back of the trunk opening with butyl and adjusting the hinges and the strike plate so that the gasket is more tightly compressed when the lid is closed. All of this and after about 1/2" of rain last night I still had about 1/4" of water in the bottom of both wells. The side marker light holes and mounting screws were filled in during the resto work so leakage around the side marker lights is not the source of the water.

I have checked and at this point there does not appear to be any water entering from the front side of the trunk lid / opening. As far as I can determine the water appears to be entering somewhere around the rear corners of the trunk opening, either above the tail lights or just to the outside of the tail lights. I have done a grease smear test on the gasket and there appears to be two spots where it looks like there is a lap weld between the rear 1/4 panels and the rear panel that forms the back of the trunk. This weld seam seams to sit a little lower than the rest of the lip around the trunk and the gasket does not contact solidly across this seam on either side of the car. I don't know that this is the source of the leak; but, I thought perhaps I could bump the sheet metal up a bit with a mallet so that it is level providing for a better gasket seal; but, no deal. Whether it is the lap weld or whatever, the sheet metal at that point is very rigid and any persuasion is likely to cause distortion in adjacent panels so modification of the contact area is a no go.

Right now I am at a bit of a loss as to where exactly the water in entering. Perhaps Volvo added the drain holes because they gave up on trying to seal the trunk lid. Have any 140 owners dealt with this and found a path to a dry trunk?
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Old Jul 9th, 2020, 22:29   #2
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I am starting to wonder whether I installed my trunk gasket inside-out. This is the profile of the gasket.

https://classic-volvo.com/rubber-tru...for-volvo.html

For those of you who have an original 140 (or early 240) trunk gasket, is it installed with the open part of the V of the gasket facing out or in?
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Old Jul 14th, 2020, 13:31   #3
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I'm surprised that no one has replied to this. Maybe a post on the 240 section might do the trick.
Idea for testing. Cover the whole of the trunk area with newspaper. Cover that with plastic. In one piece if possible or seal the sections with duct tape. Cover that with newspaper and wait for the next rain or use your hose as a sprinkler, Don't jet the water. Check to see where the water has dripped in. The plastic is to stop the top paper being made wet from underneath. If you get no sign of leakage on the top paper, careful remove the top paper and plastic and see if there are any wet patches on the lower papers.
Sprinkling talcum powder in suspect areas will often show up water trails. You might want to make a ring of talc around the spare wheel wells to see where the entry point for water is.
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Old Jul 14th, 2020, 16:35   #4
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I think I may have solved the problem. I discovered that water was entering via two sources

The first was water getting under the gasket at the front of the trunk opening and then running down the inside of the gasket and then being trapped at the back of the trunk on the inside of the gasket. In heavy rain the water accumulates and then flows over the back sill into the trunk. I think I have fixed that by adding a thin strip of ribbed EPDM weather strip along the outside vertical surface of that lip around the front of the trunk. The inside lip of the trunk lid weather strip engages this ribbed strip and so far seems to prevent water from getting under the weather strip. Volvo covered that lip with wind lace; but, only extended that wind lace up the sides of the trunk, ending about 100 mm before the corners at the front of the trunk. I think its right where the windlace ends that the water gets under the gasket because of the discontinuity. If Volvo had extended that wind lace around the complete periphery of the trunk water getting under the weather strip might not have been a problem.

With that source of water eliminated, I found that I was still collecting water in the wells in the trunk; but, it was not entering from around the trunk opening. After messing around with the garden hose for about an hour, I found that water was entering through the vertical weld seam that ends just above the trunk wells at the very back of the well. This weld seam runs right up to the bottom of the buckets for the tail lights. When the tail light buckets are inserted into the back panel and sealed in place the lip of the bucket overlaps and hides the top of that seam. On my car, the top of the seam on the left side was poorly formed leaving a small gap between the lip on the tail light bucket and the top of the vertical seam. To boot, the sealing of the bottom of the bucket to the rear body panel was incomplete leaving a gap there. This incomplete sealing was present on both the right and left tail lights. With the trunk open and the tail lights in place I held a hose over the tail lights and ran water over them. In about 15 seconds you could see water running out of that vertical lap seam just above the rear of the trunk wells and running down into the well. Two minutes of doing this and I had about 12 mm of water in the bottom of the well. I was surprised at how such a small apparent gap could admit so much water.

The flaw at the bottom of the tail light bucket is not visible until you remove both the tail light lens and the bulb holder assembly which has the tail light gasket. Once the bulb holder assembly was removed on my car you could see the deformity in the weld seam on the left side that created the gap allowing water to enter the inside of the seam. The right side did not have that deformity; but, with your finger nail you could feel a fairly large gap between the bottom of the tail light bucket and back panel of the trunk. I purchased some clear seam sealant to fill the deformity in the weld seam and seal the bottom and up the sides of the buckets on both sides of the car. The sealant is hidden when the tail light lens and bezel is installed. The sealant is still setting up so I haven't had a chance to do a water test.

When I was doing the flooding of water across the back windshield with the trunk lid open, this problem of water entering the seam did not show up. With the trunk lid open the water flows down the channels on either side of the trunk opening and shoots out the back. With the trunk lid closed, the water flowing down those channels hits the lip at the very back of the trunk and then drains down directly over the tail lights. The trim bezel around the tail light lens does not contact the back panel of the trunk. It probably sits off the surface about 3-4 mm. This gap between the trim bezel and the back of the trunk acts as a perfect channel to direct water down and into the gap between the bottom of the tail light bucket and the body or that deformity in the seam that existed on my car.

I will note that in all my water testing exercises, I did not see any evidence of water getting into the tail light assemblies. The tail light gasket was doing a good job of sealing the bulb holder assembly to the lens. Not such a good job of sealing the tail lights to the body.
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Old Jul 15th, 2020, 15:47   #5
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Good detective work. I hope you can solve the issues 100%.
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Old Jul 17th, 2020, 17:12   #6
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Partial success.

I washed the car yesterday and checked the trunk after the wash. No water on the right side; but, I had a couple of teaspoons of water in the left well. As best as I can determine the water is not entering from around the tail light or over the back sill. Looking for signs of water and checking with my fingers everything appeared to be dry at the back of the well; but it was definitely damp at the front of the well. I might have been overly zealous with the pressure washer when trying to clean seeds / twigs / dirt out of the channel around the trunk and forced water under the gasket at the front of the trunk. I will have to do some further testing by flooding water over the back window with a garden hose to see if it remains dry.
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Old Jul 18th, 2020, 16:31   #7
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Default watch this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6tHqzNJHl4

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Old Jul 18th, 2020, 18:31   #8
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Love the Amazon Cars' videos with the birds twittering in the background. He had an easy job of the gasket R&R with the boot lid off the car. I did it with the lid still on the car so I get extra marks for effort (or stupidity). The comments about spreading the channel in the corners was illuminating as getting the gasket into the channel in the corners was the most difficult part.
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Old Jul 19th, 2020, 03:41   #9
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We had a relatively short; but, intense down-pour today. After the storm cleared I went out and checked the trunk and everything appeared dry. So a tentative two thumbs up. Tentative because on previous occasions I thought it was fixed and have subsequently been proven wrong. I want a couple more rainstorms with no mildew in the trunk before I declare victory.
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Old Jul 26th, 2020, 07:16   #10
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Another storm yesterday dropping 25 - 75 mm of rain (depending on where you were when the clouds opened up) in about an hour. The trunk remained dry so I am about to put this into the win column - as long as I remember to keep the pressure washer nozzle pointed away from the trunk.
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