Friday - September 09, 2011

Hope that fixes it

We have now had an entire 24 hours without rain, and the sun even put in an appearance for half the afternoon today. While the flood waters start to recede a bit in central PA and central NY (guess I should refer to Binghamton now as my “alma mudder") I seized the chance to try and fix my car trunk.

Not sure why, but the trunk lid has been leaking. Maybe strapping giant ladders to it under tension has pulled it out of alignment a bit? Could be. After this latest deluge, when I opened the lid, at least a gallon of water poured out from the various recesses in the lid itself. The brake lights were filled with water. Not to mention the small ponds under the spare tire and in the corners. Something had to be done.

So I took the trunk lid apart, took it right off the car, dried and cleaned everything, then had a go with the silicon bathtub caulk. Everything got caulked. Every nut, every bolt, every place where a bit of plastic nestled up against a bit of metal, every gasket, every place where there was an opening. The result is ugly, big blops of white stuff everywhere, but it should be watertight now. Later on when I put the lid back on, the lock didn’t line up with the hasp. Not much good waterproofing if the trunk won’t stay shut! I figured that one out - the hasp is adjustable. To do that I had to crawl into the trunk from the backseat to get at the bolts. It wasn’t hard, but the trunk wasn’t tightly closed afterwards. That’s when I realized I needed some downforce to do the job right. So I borrowed one of the neighbors, who is not even close to anorexic, and had her sit on the trunk lid while I went inside to do the hasp bolts. Squished it right down, tight against the inner lip gasket. Now the trunk shuts tight as a drum. After the caulk was dry I took a plastic scraper around the outside of the trunk and peeled away all the extra white caulk, then covered it over with some black RTV sealant. That makes the caulking much less obvious, so I don’t feel like I’m driving a redneck spazmobile.

I bet I bailed 3 gallons of water out of the trunk wells. Let’s see what happens the next time it rains ... which might be tomorrow? 

Posted by Drew458     on 09/09/2011 at 05:01 PM   
Filed Under: • Miscellaneous •  
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