I did this around Christmas time...then suddenly remembered this info could be very useful. Our cars are getting long in the tooth, and chasing down water leaks can be an ordeal. Most threads I found say something "check the sunroof drains" which doesn't help when you have a slicktop. Eventually it was my roommate, who has extensive experience with VWs having VW problems, who ultimately pointed out how water was getting into my car.
So here goes:
The problem: Recent rains in California turned my footwells into reservoirs deep enough to fix the drought. I cleared the elephant trunk, which had 20 years of gunk in it.
This is probably a couple years of sitting under a tree in a drier part of California.
Took out my seats, used shop rags to soak up the moisture under the carpet (I couldn't figure out how to pull the doorsills off) and used a fan to dry out the carpet overnight, which was incredibly effective. I also bought two canisters of DampRid and left them in the footwells to catch any moisture that might come up. Did a leak test by pouring water into the vents at the windshield base and all looked good, with water draining out under the fenders where they should, and no obvious leaks into the cabin.
I parked the car in the rain again, and while the passenger side was dry, the driver side was wet again.
My roommate suggested a seal or barrier might be the culprit, since he had the same problem with his VWs. I took off my door card and found the vapor barrier had shrunken, like that dude in the waiting room in Beetlejuice, leaving a gap in just the right spot to let water in.
You can see where the water was coming in.
Door card soaked (it was fine after it dried out)
Where the barrier pulled away from the bottom of the door:
The leak is more obvious from this angle:
The Fix: I bought a roll of 6 mil plastic sheeting from Home Depot and a box of 3M strip caulk from Amazon after hitting up 6 places and not finding it (
http://www.amazon.com/3M-08578-Black-Strip-Calk/dp/B000PEZ1L4). Strip caulk is a tacky tar-like substance that feels sort of like Play-doh. It's pliable, sticky, and doesn't harden and doesn't seem to leave residue. Hot-rodders and restorers use it to build weather seals the same way I'm about to describe.
I lay strips along the path of the old adhesive, overlapping each strip slightly to create one continous loop. I cut a sheet of plastic larger than original barrier, and laid it in place, working from the top down. I smoothed the strip caulk down by hand and made everything was sealed before trimming the sheet down to size, adding cutouts for the door handle and wiring.
Mmm. Black licorice.
Initial fitting. The strip caulk is easy to work with, and I could lift the sheeting to pull it taut where needed.
In this case, trimming did not make it look bigger.
After another week of rain, it was bone dry. Success!
So if you're having leakage problems, or just need a new vapor barrier on your E30 (this works for any car, for that matter) this is an easy and affordable way to do it.
Topic: FIXED: Water leaking into interior (Read 7128 times)