Where to seal rear light units

[Kugaman1]

Hi,
Over the past few days of rain, Ive noticed the dreaded condensation appearing in one of my rear light units.

If someone on here has successfully resealed theirs, can you indicate whereabouts on the attached pic it is best to apply sealant?

I intend to take it out and do this next week.
I know there have been threads about this, but none have any pics anymore!
Thanks in advance.
Andy

 

[flybobbie]

See the two ovals with rubber seals, the plastic they are attached to is held in place by the clips around the outside. Just use a blunt knife to ease them up and it unclips. Inside is a rubber seal. Dry it out and the lamp. I reassembled using evo stick glue, to glue the seal in place, then a liberal coating before I clipped it back together. Then finally one last coat around the outside.

I tried silicon sealant in the past, but with limited success, gluing was the final attempt and it worked.

 

[Kugaman1]

Perfect.
Thanks flybobbie. I will give it a go in the next few days!

 

[biggles]

I didn't take any pics when I did mine :roll: I used silicone and have had no further issues(3years+ now) but I left out the old seal completely as it is just like a sponge and is the main problem, just neatly fill the whole channel and make sure you don't get any air bubbles in the silicone also fill it to about 2-3mm above the channel that the old seal sat in to make sure you get a good seal all around when you replace the cover.
But another potential problem could be where the lense is bonded the the main body, have a look around the edge especially along the bottom section and if it look like it's parting or has what looks like cracking along the seal which mine did, this could cause some leakage, so I removed the top cover held on with 4 screws being careful as they are clutch head screws, then I masked around the whole lenses edge to prevent smearing the silicone over it and applied a fine bead around the whole unit carefully smoothing it in, I left it to cure before refitting the cover.
The whole design of the light is poor as is that part of the car in my opinion, with the light out you will see that any water run off along the boot lid channel is all deposited onto that section of the light :thumbsdown: so I made a small u channel out of some old dynomat, only needs to be about 1x1x1cm and about 8-9cm long with the end closest to boot badge closed off and then I stuck it under the section where the water runs off the boot lid channel and around the side of the car so that now all the water runs away from the light and down the side of it instead I tested it with the light out, great results if you do this bit though be careful how far around the side you take the channel as you'll see lower down behind the bumper is a flapped vent for the boot so you don't want the water to run down onto this either, if I think on I'll pop a light out and snap a piccy as it'll be much clearer then

 

[Kugaman1]

Thanks biggles.
Ive done mine this afternoon.
Only just saw your post after I did them!

I resealed the clip off part with a high quality adhesive sealant. If it leaks again, I will remove and try your idea of taking out the sponge seal and filling with sealant.....

Will wait and see what the next wet outing brings!

 

[biggles]

good that you got it done, I'm sure it'll work well, I could have kept some goldfish in mine before I did them :lol:

 

[Kugaman1]

good that you got it done, I'm sure it'll work well, I could have kept some goldfish in mine before I did them :lol:

Mine werent that bad, just some preventative work!
Im tempted to take em out again and stick on some extra sealant, not sure I went mad enough with it yesterday judging by your comments!

 

[biggles]

Well small goldfish Maybe
If you've done some work on them then I'd just sit back and wait to see what happens and if no more water, jobs a goodun,
I'll post a picture up in a day or two of the little gutter I added to keep the water off them in the first place as well, You may also have seen that some have drilled a little hole in them to let them drain out not something I'd do though, better to prevent the ingress in the first place

 

[Kugaman1]

Cheers, be good to see a pic of the channel you added.

 

[biggles]

Here you go

 

[Kugaman1]

Nice one!
Im gonna wait for the next rain shower ( never far away in scotland) to see how my sealant repair has performed.
If it hasnt worked as planned, this seems the logical route.......

Cheers matey!