On 21/10/2013 at 22:41, felicia16v said:

Right guys, at work we seal every single fabia that comes thru the door and that is a lot of cars, we do it differently to most and get 100% success rate and it is still easy to remove the carrier if needed in the future.

remove the door cards as usual, then drill into the door like so

 

I used a 5mm drill here on my own car this evening.

 

then clean the area around the carrier. and use aluminium tape to cover the seal around the carrier like so

 

(we usually do the same around the speaker but I have just fitted these and used sealant to join em lol)

 

the tape sticks like a sticky thing and is water proof so as the water comes past the seal on the carrier it is trapped under the tape, then it runs down and back inside the door thru the holes we have just made..

as long as you are careful with the tape and don't press it into the gap it leaves a nice channel for the water to run thru 

rear doors

same principle

 

best bit is it is an instant fix, no waiting for sealer to cure and easy to remove if a window reg breaks or a door latch packs in.

the tape is a couple of quid for a roll of it and there is enough to do lots of cars usually and the first cars we did this to were at least 5 years ago and none of them leak. 

we usually run a small paint brush round the hole we drill to protect the bare metal from rusting away.

simples!!!

 

Sorry to drag up 5 year old topic, but I'd like to do this (noticed rear doors on both cars leaking in this rain 😞) photobucket decided to blur all the photos, anyone know where I should drill?

 

Ah found it by myself after that for anyone else: 

Edited 2 November, 20196 yr by alff

One side of mine was terrible, had to pull up the carpet as water kept coming through, the insulation underneath was absolutely soaked. Mould everywhere, cleaned up, stuck a load of silica in there for now. Though I'm probably going to pull it all out put foam insulation and new carpet. 

 

Good things, tested tape/drill fix with pressure washer and it does seem to be working, so drilling four tiny holes saved me drilling out all the rivets. 

You'd think Skoda would have sorted this on the later ones 😕 

 

I still don't understand how or why the water is flowing to in inside of the door, but get the idea of routing it with the tape. 

4 hours ago, alff said:

so drilling four tiny holes saved me drilling out all the rivets. 

 

 

You don't need to remove the carrier to seal it. You just do it from the outside.

 

4 hours ago, alff said:

I still don't understand how or why the water is flowing to in inside of the door, but get the idea of routing it with the tape. 

 

The black plastic bracket that is used to hold the lock during assembly is one of the places water tracks down inside the door.

 

Pic courtesy of our most learned  member Wino...

 

Edited 3 November, 20196 yr by TMB

That pic is very helpful explains a lot. 
 

What I meant was i find it strange that it’s expected that water flows behind the carrier at all, but it’s obviously expected with drain holes at the bottom of the door and channels inside the carrier. Maybe the same on all cars, something you never think about. Seems like it’d be no good for speakers.

 

 On my older one (2002) this had obviously been a recurring problem, some kind of sealant had been caked on, nothing like the neat jobs you see here. The carrier was also warped looking with gaps, you could push it around so you’d need a really substantial seal to deal with it. 

If the rear windows weren't openable, it would be reasonably east to seal the doors completely. As soon as there's a seal that needs to allow the glass to move up and down fairly easily, there will be water getting past it. If you look at the 'scraper' seal at the bottom of the glass from outside, there's often a visible gap of a millimetre or more to the glass at each end.

 

It just so happens that on the mk1 Fabia, the bottom of the vertical metal bit at the front of the rear quarterlight window drips onto that plastic bracket that Lee mentioned, after water leaks down these gaps in the seal. Then it runs down and along the bracket onto the carrier.  The neoprene foam seal around the perimeter just isn't up to dealing with the resulting streams.
 

If it weren't for this bracket, most of the water would fall harmlessly straight down to the drain holes.

Edited 3 November, 20196 yr by Wino

Thanks for explaining, that has clicked now with the help of the above photo, I can see the bracket sticking out ready to catch water.

i had my fronts done in warranty ( so that's at least 11 years ago.), with no recurrence. Pity is that i only had the fronts leaking at that time, and they’d only do the leaking ones. Skoda being stingy I suspect.

Tech told me that they only remove the cards if thy are screwed in. Otherwise if riveted they reseal them.

Make sure you buy new plastic inserts that clip the door card to the metal of the door. Check ebay.

Use knife to remove the shrunken neoprene seal and use plumbers gold (really.good sealant and adhesive). +2yrs and no more leaks. The door card then is pushed onto the plastic spiral clips to retain it to the door. Good luck.