I feel I have done a pretty good job of getting my VS water resistant. I have definitely solved the water intrusion problems of;
The windows---adding an extra 2" +/- to my windows so that they fit into the slots at the top and sides where the windows are supposed to fit. ( What a concept!)
Water dripping on my knees--a dollop of silicone to each window frame rivet below the window frame up under the dash.
Water dripping at the top of the windshield while driving in the rain--a third (center) top latch plus better rubber sealing rubber across the top where the window meets the bow.
Water intrusion at the sides of the windshield into the car--Silicone at the base of the windshield across the length of the windshield---and at the ends.
But the wet floors were always an unsolved problem. I truly believe I solved that today. For a VS the vaunted water shields are meaningless because there is nothing to be helped by the shields. The fiberglass where the shields go are continuous and thee is no area where a shield would mean anything. The next step was to fill the voids in front of where the rear tires throw water into those voids. Done-- and no help. Coming from the Tour De Hoe we drove through rain as hard as any I have ever experienced. This deluge led to water on the floors yet again. I'm talking 2" behind the seats --disgusting and defeating. Thoroughly dried out with two window fans after getting home.
So--Conferring with Alan Merklin this week---we don't call him the "wizard" for nuttin' --I had a plan to once and for all make the leap to nirvana---"dry floors in a Vintage Speedster". Step one was to slather the good 3-M undercoat product in the fender wells where the wheels throw water ahead and into voids at the front of the wheels, that John Steele pointed out to me at Carlisle 3 years ago. After 2 tubes of good silicone in the two voids on each side I still had the floor water but slathered it again today with the good 3-M undercoat product for good measure. I just knew this was not the cure so today I went to a local mechanics shop and used their lift to seek a cure once and for all. Here's the big secret no one has posted about in my 14 years of Speedsterdom; there is a junction where the fiberglass body ends and the steel pan begins. It is underneath the car just about where the package tray 's edge goes straight down to the floor. The fiberglass edge is above and the steel Bug pan is below and the two edges meet there. There are two steel tubes maybe 5" diameter and 10" wide on each side. hey look like axles but they are just 10" tubes on each side of the center. You can't miss them if you are underneath the car. In my car on the left side, the place where the fiberglass and the steel was sealed with that shitty expandable foam!! That might take up some space but it is NOT waterproof! On the right side there was an old rubber gasket between the two surfaces and some undercoating that was clearly beyond it's sell-by date. Here is where the water was coming in. It was pretty exciting to see this clear proof of what was causing my wet floors. I have never read a post about this place for water intrusion anywhere and was pretty excited to have this revealed to me.
I cleaned out as much of the crappy expandable foam as I could and replaced the removed foam with the best Professional 3-M undercoating---like 3 coats of it. On the right side of the car there was no foam stuff but the rubber gasket material was loose against the place it was supposed to be protecting, I removed the worst of the gasket material and slathered the area with the same 3-M product. I am sore from 3 hours of dealing with this!
I haven't tested it yet but I will tomorrow on the way to a car show in N. Little Rock honoring Vets, but I am pretty confident I have solved my wet floor problem and will post a report later. One note---after all the work today it dawned on me that brushing on that "Flexsteel" product that is hyped so much on television might have worked even better than the 3-M undercoat aerosol. I believe that whatever the outcome of tomorrow's drive I will still jack up each side of the car and brush on that Flexsteel product. Alternately the Flexsteel tape may be a good way to seal the problem area.
I apologize for the length of this post but 12 years ago I would have welcomed it. The big news is that the place where water entering the floors pf a VS has been discovered. This is the big news of this post--"where the hell is the water coming from??"
This could have been taken care of during manufacture but sadly we all understand everything about that. I doubt that the owner of a car built by the business that manufactured his personal Speedster replica has water on HIS car's floor. He solved this issue for himself. We are on our own.
I would have loved this information when I first got my car and hope this info help's others.
