Carcrazy117

On 11/16/2005 at 8:37 PM, SKperformance said:

Well we all know in Canada we use salt to help get rid of ice and snow for winter driving .

This has provided me with years of safe driving but also seems to have taken a toll on my LS.

I seemed to have a small leak in my trunk which i thought i had fixed.

Unfortunately i did not find the spot or area where it was coming from?

Here are the details .

Where the rubber seal that goes around the trunk lid to stop water from coming in sits (from the taillights along the bottom edge where the actual lock is.

I found water dripping lightly down into my spare wheel well. After tracing back the drips i found it was coming from the seal as it was wet on the inner side of the seals.

I could just put silicone and call it a day but decided to fix it rather than band aid it.

So i pulled off the whole seal and found small little rust spots all along the edge but under where the seal covers.

I could not figure this out as it was still sealing very well and in excellent shape still. On closer inspection i found all the sport weld depressions holding the 2 body panels together along the seam had rust.

There is over 10 small spots where water has seemed to pool and cause the metal to rust.

I spent the last hour with my dremel grinding most of it out.Now the spots are shiny steel and i will finish grinding tomorrow and then priming them before putting a nice coat of black paint to seal it up.

Here is my question i doubt anyone else has noticed the leak or the rust but could some of you who have the ucf20/21 1995-2000 body style and pull back the rubber seal to see if you can find any rust from water pooling in there.

I am glad i caught it early so i have metal left after removing the rust . It is in a place no one looks but it is very accessible as the seal pulls right off easily and pushes right back on easily as well.

If any of you could take a look and let me know as i have a feeling it is a design defect which is causing the water to pool in the tiny spot weld points.

thanks

I noticed water in the spare tire area, after pulling everything out I thought it was the plugs on the bottom.  When I went to replace the plugs I still had everything out from before. This time I could see more water, but this time up the back side under the trunk latch.  I didn't even have to pull the seal back to see the rust.  Too late for me, because almost both pieces of metal were rusted thru above the latch. Water that came down from above inside the seal leaked through where it was rusted.  Definitely think its more of a common problem than we know.