pichinco

I found some water under the rear passenger side seat. Actually no water, just soaked sound dampening pad. I let it dry out that day assuming my little one had spilled something back there. Since then I can't get the rear seat out again (latch release broke) but the pad is wet again.

Anybody have a suggestion where to start looking for the leak? Any ideas on a repair short of a new top?

TIA!

e40water

well the only way you can tell is if youre rag top is leaking, I would get out the garden hose spray the top of the rag top down, then see if youre rag top has a rip or hole some where, Or some kind of moldings maybe be missing.

GoodLuck man.

pichinco

Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking as well. Just hoping someone might have encountered something similar. Any chance you've had to figure out how to remove the back seat after the latch has broken? The catch won't release from the rod apparently. I have a feeling this problem was known to the previous owner and the seat latch was broken while hiding it. Grr...

horatio102

What latch? What year? hm
My top quit working so I took it off. Just strip it, go lightweight. My 5.0 vert is down to 3000 lbs.

e40water

Heya pichinco, Are you wanting to pull out the back bottom seat? I had a back lever break, all I did is get a screw drive put it into where the lever was pryed upwards it poped free. Let me know if it worked.

Good Luck

pichinco

'96. The latch is the little plastic hicky that holds the back seat down.

Got the seat out finally. Turns out the latch was just really rusty. More water than I thought for longer than I thought apparently.

Pulled the seat and as much of the inside rear quarter as I could...turned on the water hose and found a sprinkling of water around some type of large plastic insert sealed with some black tacky stuff. Looks like someone had been in here before and pulled it back to look at something. I put some silicon around it to reseal that and thought I'd fixed the problem. That is, until it rained last night.

I left the seat and pad out to dry (and to check for further leaks) and this morning it had about a 1/4 cup of water puddled right where the seat would have been. Nothing like this showed with the water hose!!! Grrr.... Apparently wherever it runs in from drys fairly quickly as well. Couldn't find a whole lot of "wet" coming down the sides.

Probably not something you guys are going to be able to trouble shoot over the net. I was just hoping somebody had run into something similar. 'Preciate your trying though.

pichinco

If it were not my daily driver...thats what I'd do!!! That explains the "roadster" in your sig!!

horatio102

Yup.

And yeah, if mine was a daily driver I'd be screwed. Living 20 minutes from the Canadian border and 5 minutes from the ocean I get my share of rain. It's also VERY hot inside the car since I've got no insulation or carpet anymore. I break a sweat just driving around.

pichinco

I finally found the problem. Now I have NO idea how to fix it!! Apparently the rear windows have "pulled" in from the outer weather stripping so water is getting in where the window top and rear window meet. I rolled the inner weather stripping in to push the window back out and it helped, but not a fix.

I looked but couldn't see a way to adjust the track. Looks to be welded to the inner quarter panel. New weather stripping maybe? The only problem with that is it doesn't fix the problem where the window meets the top in the rear. It really looks like the rear portion of the rear window has "pulled" in. I don't know a better way to explain it.

At this point I'm ready to listen to nearly anything. Gotta feeling this is a job for a body shop or dealership.

FoxGT

See if you can fit a piece of paper into any spot around the area where the water is. If it's from the window, put a strip of paper in the door jam & close the door. You should be able to move the paper with a little resistance. If you find a spot where it moves freely that is where your leak most likely is.