Sealing the Cabin from Water Ingress

NachaLuva

NachaLuva

Product Developer
Joined
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SE Melbourne
I'm wanting to seal the cabin to stop water leaking in if I get stuck in a river or bog hole. Ive done the rear vents & 1/4 panel drainage holes. I've lifted the LHS carpet but I cant find the drainage holes I expected to be there :shrug:

Front:


Rear:
 
I would have thought door seals, then through the doors themselves (filling up the overflowing through speakers holes etc), firewall... maybe under the rear seat, spare wheel well... gear stick rubber boot.

Anything under the carpet already has a rubber grommet. It really only gets wet because thats where water tends to pool, ranther than a site for water ingress.

You could move the catch for the doors and get a tighter seal? Plus do what dulagarl did and check the inner door plastic cover thing.

Not sure if the cabin pressurization trick used to keep dust out might also help to mitigate water ingress, in which case making sure all your windows and door seals and good and tight will help pressurization and hopefully less water.
 
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Yeah I need to adjust the drivers door, its a bit loose. Hadnt thought of the gear stick boot.

I put one side of the car up on ramps & filled the rear footwell to see where it was coming out. The holes the that the white plastic trim underneath the grey door trim are bad, there's also a 1" hole under the back seat near the door & another small one under the front of the rear seat. Good news is that once the water level dropped below these holes the dripping stopped so the large bung in the floor seem to be OK.

Its raining atm but I'll get some photos tomorrow so others know what to do if they want to seal up their cabin.

Not sure what to do with the huge 2"x2" hole up the front by the cruise control module. I may just silicone some plastic over it with a grommet for the aerial cable...

As Dedman commented on his build thread the problem is the dozens of trim tab holes all over the car. How to seal them while still allowing the trim tab to click in.

Can anyone suggest anymore holes I've missed? Mr.T, I remember you said you sealed about 20 in yours
 
NachaLuva said:
Can anyone suggest anymore holes I've missed? Mr.T, I remember you said you sealed about 20 in yours
Click to expand...
What I did was to silicon up any & everything.

When I lifted the carpet etc, if I saw a grommet I put a thin layer of silicon around it.
If there was a hole or a cable or anything (grommet or no grommet) going through the floor it got done.

Probably a bit of over kill, but so far so good :ebiggrin:

Regards
Mr Turbo
 
Red arrows show holes/gaps. Green arrows show tape over holes that needs to be checked.

Front door sill:




[URL=https://imageshack.com/i/16ukboj][/URL]

Rear door sill:




Under sill/panel trim next to rear seat:


Under back seat near sill:


This last one shows a telltale mud deposit. I wonder whats inside the sills!
 
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I poured a jug of water in there & it drained out straight away so there's not much restriction to water flow there. It wouldnt be too hard to do, just remove the first door sill trim piece & there you are, no need to lift any carpet :iconwink:
 
Venom said:
I would have thought door seals, then through the doors themselves (filling up the overflowing through speakers holes etc),
Click to expand...

Ill second this. When I have been stuck in deep water most of the water came in through what looked like the door seal but may have been the door filling up with water then through the speaker or other holes in the door then running down the inside of the door trim. I think this is quite likely as there was some delay before water started coming in which may have been the time for the door to fill up.

In terms of other places for water to come in. The ports to the fuel tank had clear run marks from water entering on mine.
Also I had a 5ish cm diameter hole in the spare wheel well which is hidden when the tyre is in place.
There is a similar hole to the one near the CC unit where the seatbelt tensioners are.

If you are interested the wiring on the CC unit is long enough (well it was on mine) to relocate it up next to the glove box so in the worst case if you do get stuck in water the radio is the first thing to get destroyed giving you more time to get out.

Also I checked the gear levers and they seem pretty good on mine.
 
When I got stuck last time I had a look at the doors & couldnt see any water coming in that way, either through the door seals or the speakers. I may have missed it though.

Dedman said:
In terms of other places for water to come in. The ports to the fuel tank had clear run marks from water entering on mine.
Click to expand...

Are these the pipes running along the sill then under the seat? The grommet looks good but I was going to seal it better anyway.

Also I had a 5ish cm diameter hole in the spare wheel well which is hidden when the tyre is in place.
Click to expand...
Is this at the bottom of the wheel well? Done that one...thoroughly siliconed lol

There is a similar hole to the one near the CC unit where the seatbelt tensioners are.
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I'll have to have another look for these, our models may be different though. I dont have pre-tensioners, just the inertia lock system.

If you are interested the wiring on the CC unit is long enough (well it was on mine) to relocate it up next to the glove box so in the worst case if you do get stuck in water the radio is the first thing to get destroyed giving you more time to get out.
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Yep I'll move mine. Did you cable tie it up there or does the bolt act as an earth?
 
NachaLuva said:
When I got stuck last time I had a look at the doors & couldnt see any water coming in that way, either through the door seals or the speakers. I may have missed it though.
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I think it depends on how deep you are. I was stuck with water up to the top of the black plastic trim on the outside of the doors so I think the pressure was enough to overcome the door seals
NachaLuva said:
Are these the pipes running along the sill then under the seat? The grommet looks good but I was going to seal it better anyway.
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Nah they are big plates (one round one rectangular) secured by 4 or 3 screws pretty much directly below the umbrella compartment, you have to take some of the boot foam out to get to them.
NachaLuva said:
Is this at the bottom of the wheel well? Done that one...thoroughly siliconed lol
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Yep thats the one. I left a small drain hole in mine because I found water was still getting in and collecting in there
NachaLuva said:
I'll have to have another look for these, our models may be different though. I dont have pre-tensioners, just the inertia lock system.
Click to expand...
Yeah perhaps tensioner was a bad word as im pretty sure mine are just the inertia lock systems as well. But at the bottom of the B pillar, have to take the big piece of grey plastic trim off that covers the pillar down from where the seatbelt enters into it. Similar sized hole to the one near the CC unit at a similar height from the floor
NachaLuva said:
Yep I'll move mine. Did you cable tie it up there or does the bolt act as an earth?
Click to expand...
I just cable tied mine to the big unpainted metal tube than runs behind the dash. Not sure about the earth but no issues so far.
 
I have also put sheets of plastic on the inside of my doors behind the trim and behind the door speakers to help seal them up because I think it was my biggest source of water entry perhaps after the door seals.
 
Gearstick boot isn't watertight. There is also a small hole under the bracket that holds the rear fold seats to the boot floor
 
Sealed up the big hole at the front after relocating the CC module up next to the glovebox (wrapped in carpet first so it wouldnt rattle):

Before:


After:


Then got to the seat belt recess & blow me down, after I removed all the pillar trim, there was a seat belt tensioner & sensor! So I do have them :lol:

Before:


Plastic fitted:


Finished:
https://imageshack.com/i/mw5bazj

Got some more holes to seal but I'll only have the LHS sealed in time for the trip to Wombat. I'll just have to make sure I dont get stuck on the drivers side in a bog lol :iconwink:
 
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Nice work mate, i'll have to look into this myself. Especially with my ECU sitting on the floor ready to be flooded.
 
Thanks mate. Plus I got to play with Playdoh today...winner! :rotfl:

I used Gorilla tape to cover some of the little holes. I then cut off the tabs on the white trim & taped over those slots too. Just to be sure I added an extra layer of cloth tape over the Gorilla tape so it cant wear through. I also put a layer of tape over all the little black patches Subaru puts on the numerous holes during manufacture just to be sure.

Then came the slots that the grey trim clip into. There are white things that clip into the sill, that the trim tabs then clip into. I wanted to seal these but in a way I could still get the trim off if I ever need to, so I needed to keep the silicone off the trim tabs....hmmm, how to do this?

I came up with Playdoh!

I put it in the white things then pushed them onto the trim tabs & cleaned up the excess:



I then applied silicone all over these silly white things so that it would form a silicone seal all around it, plus seal it to the sill. I carefully pushed the trim on then done!

The passenger side is now finished...I'm halfway there! :rolleyessarcastic:
 
I've had a lot of trouble removing some of the trim, esp around the B pillar, so here is how I did it.

The door sill trim must be removed first. Using a medium screwdriver, lever it off the sill

Lever the top trim away from the pillar trim. This is the small piece where the seat belt goes in behind the trim. Slide the belt through the slot. The steel clips will probably stay in the pillar trim, use needle nose pliers to remove these. Make sure they're not bent & put them back on the little trim. When replacing, this piece will now easily clip back in.

Undo the 2 screws behind the belt. Lever the trim away from around each door edge (easiest to do the front door edge first) & remove the trim by sliding it down. The belt can then go through the slot again.

Using a small screwdriver, gently push the side away where the carpet clips into the white trim. If you look carefully you will see what I mean.

Unscrew the white caps on the floor & unclip the white trim. You will now see all the annoying holes & slots. Go at it with tape, silicone, bungs, etc. Check all the black patches as some of them may have lifted or not be put on properly, a few of mine werent.

When replacing, just reverse the order.
 
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