clear the rear drains (under the sail panels)

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clear the rear drains (under the sail panels)

Postby Camile » Sat Sep 09, 2006 5:26 pm

first all of i'd like to add a bit of a disclaimer here.

my drains were obviously blocked so it was good to clear them out. however, a couple of days later i spent about 4hours driving (with a few hours parked) in extremely heavy rain. the next day my boot was quite wet inside. this is the only time in 2.5years that i have had a damp boot, so for some reason clearing these drains has moved something that has let water in. i'll need to find out where and sort it :wink:.

anyway, onto the drains.

to test how your drains are, park the sol on a slight downslope and get a bucket of water. slowly tip the water onto the boot lid near the corner and let the water flow into the corner (as shown below). if the drains are ok the water will slowly drain away. if not, it will just gather and turn into a small pond :roll:

this is where you're looking at:
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once you realise the water isn't draining out enough, you need to remove the sail panel.

this is done by remove the high level brake light (or, the blank plate):

i'm not sure how the blanking plate comes off, but with the brake light you need to gently prise the little red covers off. use a small screwdriver on the bottom edge (be careful, they break easy). then undo the 2 screws behind the covers and then pull hard on the whole panel so it looks like this...

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once that is out the way, you have 2 screws on each sail panel. one at the top under the panel you've just removed and one you access from inside the boot (i didn't take pics :oops:).

then you have to prise the sail panel off. start at the top and slowly work your way down till it's off:

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now you can see where the drain is...uh oh, mine is blocked badly :oops::

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at this point malcolm set up his air compressor. we put some water down the drain to try and stick all the dirt together. put the compressor in and with a blast of air it fired the dirt out the bottom with a satisfying splat :lol:. if you now pour water down the drain you should see it nicely drain out from underneath the car. you can now put it all back together and know your drains are clean.


however, there's a few bits that you might need to be careful with:

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now, i'm not sure where the holes (red circles) lead to, but the little rubber seals were very brittle on mine. the top one actually fell apart and wasn't re-used :oops:.

where the green circle is, the white plastic thing is just a locator. it's to keep the end of the sail panel in place. for some reason, honda drilled a hole into the panel to stick that in. this hole leads into the boot so if any water gets under that it will leak into the boot. might be worth to put a wee bit of silicon around that to prevent water getting through.

on my car, both the locators seemed to be nice and firm and obviously i had no problems with water in my boot before so i just kept them as they were. the only thing that has changed is that i didn't re-use the brittle rubber seal that came from where the top red circle is. i had moisture on both sides of the boot, so i don't think it's from that but if not, i don't know what else it can be.

maybe it was just because it was such a bad rain storm and was just a coincidental one off.

either way, i hope this how-to helps :wink:.

if you think i can improve on this just let me know and i'll edit bits.

cheers,

Cam
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Postby ashdelsol7 » Sat Sep 09, 2006 6:08 pm

good how to cam. will chek mine next time i wash it
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Postby SiR_chris » Sat Sep 09, 2006 6:08 pm

nice one cam, just to re-iterate you have to be extra careful prising off the sail panels because the lugs on the inside of the sail panel can snap off and remain in the white holes as circled above :evil: and you can not buy the insert to the sail panel where the lugs attach so you'll have to bond them on again (or buy a new sail panel-muchos dollars)
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Postby Camile » Sat Sep 09, 2006 6:24 pm

my passenger side sail panel was a PITA. if you look closely at the 3 red circled bits.

the top one was so tight we pulled the whole white unit out :roll:

the middle one came out perfectly. the metal clip stayed on the sail panel and the white unit stayed on the car.

the bottom one was so tight the metal clip stayed in the white unit and the sail panel slid out of it. it meant it all went back as it was except for that one rubber seal that wasn't used. there's no way that single part let in as much moisture as i found in the boot :roll:.

might need to silicon around the locators just to make sure one day. not going to bother me though, it's being SORN'd in 7 days :cry:.
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Postby Paulm » Sat Sep 09, 2006 9:07 pm

definately silicon round the red circled locaters - for peace of mind more than anything, i done both opf mine when i cleared the holes out, and its been fine since :)
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Postby damo » Sun Sep 17, 2006 7:39 pm

When i cleaned mine out, i also added some silicon around the rubber plugs, mine had started to crack a little and honda charge a fortune for them (as you would expect) again just for more piece of mind then anything
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Postby joncrx » Sun Sep 17, 2006 9:58 pm

good how to mate,
got mine done, hopefully no more leaks!!
tis me :)

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Postby Camile » Mon Sep 18, 2006 4:32 am

joncrx wrote:good how to mate,
got mine done, hopefully no more leaks!!


as long as you used some silicon as suggested above then you should be fine.

still can't believe i had no leaks at all (but blocked drains - water wouldn't drain off the boot), clear it all out and just by removing the sail panel and putting it straight back on, now it leaks :roll:

rubbish.
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Postby SammyCRX80 » Sun Nov 12, 2006 7:36 pm

I broke two of the clips on a sail panel today! One of the clips is still in one piece though, so I put some glue on the broken ones and I'm really hoping that between that, the good clip, the locater and the two screws, that should be enough to stop it flying off on the motorway :?

In case it's likely to help anyone, here's some more pics of what to expect...

Before:
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Before again:
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I didn't have a high-pressure air thingy, so I had to take the old school option, which I'm going to add to this how-to...

As I had all the interior out, I had access to the drainage tubes from inside the car as well. So, here is the tube once pulled out of the joining socket thingy (very technical description I know). That's the drivers side seatbelt on the left and electric aerial on the right (background)

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You then need to get someone to hold a jar or cup there (if you can tape a plastic cup to the tube then that might work) and then poke one of those plumber twisty metal dislodger things (sorry, I can't think what they're called!) through the drainage hole. Obviously you need to be careful, you don't want to damage the tubing, but the tube is quite thick and it's okay if you do it properly (easing it in and out, twisting it a little... so to speak!).

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By catching the dirt halfway down the tube, it saves it getting washed down to the rubber seal/grommet thing below (probably not a problem if using air pressure). Hopefully some gunk will come out, so remove the tool and pour some water into the drainage hole to remove some loose dirt. Empty the jar, then try again with the plumber tool and wash away again with water. You can now connect the tube up again (VERY IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER THIS!) and try pouring water into that drainage hole. If it doesn't come out very well at the end of the drain (near the front of the rear wheel arch), try unplugging the lower part of the tube from the joining socket and then sticking the plumber thing down there from inside the car (careful, there's some kind of rubber seal at the bottom that you won't want to completely dislodge). Use the same technique as above and eventually you should get it clear. It's also probably easier if you take the plastic sills off, as you'll know where the water comes out and whether that rubber seal/grommet thing is still in place.

If it helps, here's what it looks like:

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Anyway, here's the finished pics:

First one (note that I scratched the paint slightly removing the sail panel, so I've primed it just to be sure - doesn't matter, you can't see it anyway!)

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...and another...
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Hope that extra info comes in handy for those that don't have the air thingy. Cheers Cam, I was dreading this but it wasn't as bad as I thought! By the way, did you stop yours leaking?
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Postby Camile » Sun Nov 12, 2006 8:28 pm

aaw man, you've ruined my high-tech how-to with your pipe cleaners and taping jars to the pipe :lol: (kidding dude)

i've not done anything to stop the leaking with mine but as i said, mine only started leaking after i took the sail panels off :roll:. think it's the white locator that's letting the water through.
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Postby SammyCRX80 » Mon Nov 13, 2006 9:00 am

It's all about the plumber twisty metal dislodger thingy :)

It's been pouring hard all night, so I'm going back to my parents house later this evening to take a look and see if my slightly unorthodox technique has worked...
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Postby SammyCRX80 » Mon Nov 13, 2006 10:43 pm

...and wouldn't you know it, the side that leaked before is fine and the side that didn't is leaking water faster than the other side was in the first bloody place! Frustratingly I actually tested it at the time, so I can only assume that I dislodged the locator when replacing the sail panel. I'll have to take it apart again at the weekend and hope it doesn't rain too much in the meantime :roll:
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Postby Camile » Mon Nov 13, 2006 11:11 pm

i think that's exactly what happened to me. i cleared the drain hole and then got water leaking from what must be the locator :roll:
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Postby nominous » Tue Nov 14, 2006 11:06 am

I cleaned my drain holes on my mk2 by fitting a hose pipe to them and turning it on.
The drip drip of water and gunk over time wilkl aloow it to accumulate but a big blast of pressure will force out the dirt way before it'll disconnect the pipe from the pressure.
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Postby SammyCRX80 » Tue Nov 14, 2006 1:44 pm

... :o I wish I'd thought of that, my parents have got a pressure washer now that I think about it! Still, I can honestly say that it was soooooo much more fun doing it the Blue Peter way :)

I've been out there today doing it and I'm now 100% certain that there are no leaks. I've even sealed those locator things from inside (it is possible but very tricky) so there's nooooo way any water is getting into that boot (and no, I haven't sealed the whole thing shut) :lol: Even the underlay on my drivers side carpet is dry now. Hurrah!
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