L322 Water ingress, boot electrics

tomcat59alan said:

@holidaychicken ,you just carn't resist mating flanges (#post 16) can you Andy. Not the photos I was expecting.

Click to expand...

The opportunity to resist would be nice and I think you have enough photos
Have a nice time , don’t get too sober x

Ok so.... went out today to find the boot has an inch of water in it, never had that before, so I’ve stripped out the passenger side trim and can see a small amount of water on the pillar behind the seat belt mounts, so I’ve got some of the trim off so I can get the roof lining lower and the metal of the roof is soaked, Sunroof is draining well, rear washer pipe is sealed and fine, can’t for the life of me see where it would be coming from, could it just be condensation from water in the boot?? I think judging by the water in the boot that I have more than one issue, I say that because of quantity and also I can see why the cubby is wet but it’s the high up part of the cubby not the lower part that would lead to the boot floor

In the boot for you with an assistant with a hosepipe, if no assistant then dry everything thoroughly and out with the talc to try and narrow it down but sometimes it takes a while for water to make its way through.
Do you have a tow bar ?

holidaychicken said:

Nice one Mark, glad you are still dry !
Definitely try the talc method that Dippy mentioned with everything taken out the boot that you can

Click to expand...

Yor were so right @holidaychicken, I still keep checking after a down pour of rain, although a little less frequent now LOL

I'm thinking you have the same problem as I had. Mine was the same full of water behind the trim where the speaker sits and rear belt. I bet your bottom dollar it's coming in on your upper tailgate hinges. Once again we need to discuss flanges . Take your tailgate off, make a nice gasket and refit and I think it will be the end of your issue. This certainly worked for me.
# In this situation I can honestly say a wet flange is not ideal, just saying#

youmitegetian said:

Ok so.... went out today to find the boot has an inch of water in it, never had that before, so I’ve stripped out the passenger side trim and can see a small amount of water on the pillar behind the seat belt mounts, so I’ve got some of the trim off so I can get the roof lining lower and the metal of the roof is soaked, Sunroof is draining well, rear washer pipe is sealed and fine, can’t for the life of me see where it would be coming from, could it just be condensation from water in the boot?? I think judging by the water in the boot that I have more than one issue, I say that because of quantity and also I can see why the cubby is wet but it’s the high up part of the cubby not the lower part that would lead to the boot floor

Click to expand...

Your be amazed at just how much water can enter the car after a downpour. Mine was the same, I would mop out the boot well so it was completely dry and after rain fall the boot well would be swimming again. It deffo sounds like the same issue I had. It enters via the nearside upper tailgate hinge mating flange & travels to the left along the roof and into the rear pillar and eventually will travel down to the bottom of the rear boot bulkhead and breech the boot floor seem, see the pics I posted on this thread, you will see the water coming through the boot floor seem. It has taken me over 2 years to sort this dam issue, after buying new boot seals and great help from @holidaychicken . It's a pain staking job tracing the point of entry. As stated you need to conduct the hose pipe and talc test. I started with the hose on the lower tailgate area as to rule out entry via the bumper & tow bar and slowly worked my way up to upper tailgate O/S & finally pin pointed it to the N/S upper tailgate hinge.

It certainly sounds like it’s the same issue, I’ll have to wait now until a sunny day, I’ve taken one of the bungs out of the boot floor to drain it, I’m hoping I can’t get much water from outside coming in but I’ll have to keep an eye out. Fingers crossed it’s a sunny day next Saturday as that’s the next time I will have chance to look at it.

Have a look at my pictures, a good clue is to do the following, Open the rear boot floor cover and look inside to the far left corner and you will see a small aperture. roll up a small tea towel so you can thread it through into this hole and push in as far as you can go and await a good downfall of rain. Then pull out the towel and I bet you it's drenched. Look at my pictures I have marked the far left aperture, also the larger circular ones stuff a towel in them to as this is where the water runs before it breeches the boot floor welded seem. It's a case of constant trial & error and yes I understand your frustration, it sent me almost mad.

can it not be sealed without removing the tailgate Mark?
When i wanted to check if i had found my leak next to my towbar i dolloped a big lump of grease over where i thought the water was coming in and when that cured it i cleaned off all the grease and sealed it

Hi Andy, I'm guessing you could run a bead of grease around the mating faces. I did first try a bead of sealant around but it was almost impossible to access the rear of the hinge & after I did run sealant around the best I could inc the bolt heads the dam thing still leaked. Upon closer inspection I could see water building up behind the back of the mating face and then seeping through into the roof seem. If you can access the back part then I would certainly give it a go mate. I just can't understand how LR never fitted a gasket on production.

hmm, sounds like it needs to come off really then mate

To be honest Andy, yes complete removal at least then you can clean the mating faces properly and make your own gasket, only needs to be a thin gasket and a blob of quality sealant and job done. I had extreme difficulty trying to get the sealant gun around the back of the hinge, with the tailgate open I could not access the rear, saying that though, if you got long steady fingers you may be able to run a bead of grease around.

So is it the surface between the hinge and the body that leaks? Just thinking that a quick fix with all the rain might be to lift the hinge on one side at a time a put some sealer down, it’s a bit wet to have the boitlid off for long.

It certainly was on mine. after extensive water tests over 2 years i pin pointed mine to be taking in water underneath the N/S upper tailgate hinge. As @holidaychicken has stated a temp fix is to smear some grease around the edges of the mating faces, this should work. Unfortunately it's extremely difficult to reach the back of the hinge as the tailgate covers it in the upright position. To do the job properly I would suggest removing the complete upper taillgate (with assistance, it's dam heavy) clean the mating faces & make a very thin gasket and apply on both sides some high quality waterproof sealant. This has certainly cured mine.

Yeah the grease is a good call, I’ll do that today and hopefully I’ll get a sunny day soon when I’m off work

So a semi productive day today I hope,
Greased around the tailgate hinges, very messy and awkward but done so fingers crossed that will stop the leak until a permanent fix can be carried out.
Also fitted my towbar and sealed around the mounting surfaces so that won’t cause a new issue, looks like it previously had a towbar so maybe that was part of the issue I had. Time will tell

My new towbar was the source of my leak which you may have found the thread while searching your issue. The sealing gasket supplied is useless even with my oem one.

The bumper bar had no gasket and the towbar was a second hand one so no gasket with that so I used sealant, the mating faces were wet when I removed the bumper so certainly it’s a possibility that water could be entering the boot that way, although it won’t be responsible for the leak into the electrics compartment

Please keep us updated on this & hopefully it will have cured it.
And if it does let me know how many times you still check for a pond in your boot , I'm down to once a week now. it make you paranoid

youmitegetian said:

The bumper bar had no gasket and the towbar was a second hand one so no gasket with that so I used sealant, the mating faces were wet when I removed the bumper so certainly it’s a possibility that water could be entering the boot that way, although it won’t be responsible for the leak into the electrics compartment

Click to expand...

You could always buy some goldfish ..