[vette427-sbc]

sadly, i have recently been evicted from my garage so the vette has been outside for a while. it has basicly all new weather strip with the exeption of the t-tops. when it rains, i get severe amounts of water in the lower door hinge area, floors and rocker sills. where is it possible that it comes from?

 

[SIXFOOTER]

Bad news, it is probably coming in thru the lower windshield corners because they have rusted to cheesecloth. You might be able to temporarily stop it or reduce it by running in some sealant along the lower windshield corners where they go behind the rear edges of the fenders.
SOmething for a serious project

 

[DJ Dep]

All Vettes leak...Duntov designed them that way :laughing:

 

[TimAT]

Look at the bright side- How many guys have a swimming pool that'll run 130 MPH?

Couldn't pass that up.

I agree with SIXFOOTER- look at the lower corners of the windshield, and also the T-Tops. Close it all up with the heater fan running on high, mix some dish soap and water and douse it. See where it blows bubbles and go from there.

:cheers:

 

[010752]

Keep the seat belt retractors dry. That stuff gets expensive.:thumbsup:

 

[Patrick]

Look at the bright side- How many guys have a swimming pool that'll run 130 MPH?

:rolling:

 

[vette427-sbc]

so when i had my dash gutted i sould have addressed the problem then? :spanked: because i did find little rust holes in the lower corners and attempted to seal those up. when i had the windsheild put in the guy found some rust that had gone through. im guessing that that is where the water comes in and then goes through the holes in the inside. how impossible is it to fix these holes?

 

[big2bird]

so when i had my dash gutted i sould have addressed the problem then? :spanked: because i did find little rust holes in the lower corners and attempted to seal those up. when i had the windsheild put in the guy found some rust that had gone through. im guessing that that is where the water comes in and then goes through the holes in the inside. how impossible is it to fix these holes?

Repairing the "bird cage" is the worst of the worst. I cannot give advice on it. Merely my observation of others.

 

[TimAT]

Nothing is "unrepairable". (well some thngs are, like a broken crank! And it could be fixed, just not a real good idea). Yes, the rust in the birdcage is bad, and from the pictures I've seen on the Forum are a PITA to fix, but it CAN be done. There were some pics posted a while back of someone that made some small patch panels, and welded them in a little at a time. End result looked really good. Many hours of work. Proved that it's not impossible to repair.

:cheers:

 

[SIXFOOTER]

Speaking from personal experience, bird cage repair is not all that hard, it just requires taking most of the car apart, which sux.
You would not have been able to do it only with the dash out, but it does have to come out, as does the windshield. You could get lucky (not likely) and be able to get to the lower corners with the front clip in place. I'll post my pics of all this tonight. If you don't go ahead and do this repair, your going to get more dammage. Ruse being a chemical process does not stop on its own, it will only stop when neutralized and chemically stopped. It will continue to leak and you will get rusted floor pans, rotted carpet etc.
What it entails is removing the windshield, remove the dash, remove the front clip. This will expose all the top of the firewall, lower windshield frame, corners etc. Clean the whole thing REAL well with a brushwheel and see what you got at that point. I ended up fabbing a new drivers side WS frame corner, 2 patched along the top WS frame. It takes a bit of cutting, heating, pounding and welding, but it all went together. Primer and paint and put it all back together.

 

[DJ Dep]

Orrrrrrrrr...you could move to a VERY dry place and keep the car in a garage. Rusted cars in New Mexico are almost non-existent.

 

[SIXFOOTER]

There is that

 

[6880 Mike]

The leak in my '68 was in the cowl. Water would trickle down to the vents, then back up and get the carpets wet. Solution was to seal the cowl with 3M underbody sealant from the spray can, and unclog the vents at the bottoms of the fenders.

You will want a good weatherproof cover.

:thumbsup: