Dariusz Salomon
I'm Awesome
Hi all-when I bought my Tahoe and drove it for a while I noticed a smell of damp/moisture-after having volvo c70, which are just one big sponge due to a totaly stupid design of the door seals, I'm oversensitive about the issue. So I started digging. Best you can do in situation like this is to put your hand under the carpet-in my case it wasn't necessary. I found it at the back-carpet was wet near the barn doors. So first thing was to remove the carpet-luckily there's separate one for the cargo area and separate for the passenger cab-and only the cargo carpet was wet-it did not spread over the other one. The whole carpet was damp-the floor shown a spots of surface rust-so the problem wasn't new.
After I removed the carpet I started searching for the source of leak-pouring water over everything. It turned up that the door seal is a culprit-luckily it wasn't coming through where seal meets the door but underneath the seal-where it's fitted onto a fin that runs around the cargo area opening(pictures).
So first fih was to put Tiger seal around it-it worked for a while but the problem with rubber seals is that whatever you put on rubber-seals,silicone-it detaches after a while. Especially that the seal is working all the time-everytime you open and close doors it moves slightly-and that's exactly what happend. Tiger seal stuck to the metal beautifuly but I could remove the door seal off without any problem. The water was still getting under the carpet-so it was removed again and I took a different approach-this time I put the silicone inside the seal where it sits on the fin.
But I figured it won't be enough(rubber and silicone don't stick together) so I created a gutter. First I filled it with whatever I had at home(in my case home Acrilic as it can be painted) and I got me a can of Plastidip and painted it around the seal to create a gutter. That was a bit diffcult cause it folds over the lower part of the seal and when you close the doors it just sticks to it so I used sticks and whatnot to keep the seal unfolded,then painted it and let it dry. You must not close the door before plastidip dries or it will just stick together and you won't gave a gutter.
The pictures should explain it better than I do. So far I have no leaks.
I hope it helps if you experiance similar leak. The water is super cleaver and will find the way inside if there's one. And funny enough the most water would go through the lower part of the seal near the bumper-as it rains the level rises as it's getting trapped by the seal and eventualy goes over the fin-crazy huh?
After I removed the carpet I started searching for the source of leak-pouring water over everything. It turned up that the door seal is a culprit-luckily it wasn't coming through where seal meets the door but underneath the seal-where it's fitted onto a fin that runs around the cargo area opening(pictures).
So first fih was to put Tiger seal around it-it worked for a while but the problem with rubber seals is that whatever you put on rubber-seals,silicone-it detaches after a while. Especially that the seal is working all the time-everytime you open and close doors it moves slightly-and that's exactly what happend. Tiger seal stuck to the metal beautifuly but I could remove the door seal off without any problem. The water was still getting under the carpet-so it was removed again and I took a different approach-this time I put the silicone inside the seal where it sits on the fin.
But I figured it won't be enough(rubber and silicone don't stick together) so I created a gutter. First I filled it with whatever I had at home(in my case home Acrilic as it can be painted) and I got me a can of Plastidip and painted it around the seal to create a gutter. That was a bit diffcult cause it folds over the lower part of the seal and when you close the doors it just sticks to it so I used sticks and whatnot to keep the seal unfolded,then painted it and let it dry. You must not close the door before plastidip dries or it will just stick together and you won't gave a gutter.
The pictures should explain it better than I do. So far I have no leaks.
I hope it helps if you experiance similar leak. The water is super cleaver and will find the way inside if there's one. And funny enough the most water would go through the lower part of the seal near the bumper-as it rains the level rises as it's getting trapped by the seal and eventualy goes over the fin-crazy huh?
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