I was dealing with a leak in the windshield, but as i was taking care of that, I went to check out my trunk. I have an ed sedan, and i knew that I had a small leakage problem in my trunk, due to amplifiers failing on me after it rained and moisture seeped into the trunk area.

As I was looking around the trunk, I noticed some water at the sides by the quarter panels and right below the tail lights in the trunk. As I removed the panels that cover the bulbs I noticed that there was a good amount of moisture in there, then as i looked closer there were drips of water constantly comming down.

Here are some pics of the inside (Sorry for the bad quality )


Here is a picture of my right tail light... The red arrow (crappy paint lol) is pointing to where the water is dripping from... It leaks at a fast rate, and its weird because it was also leaking thru the clamps on the panel that covers the bulbs...


So, this is the apparent spot where the water is finding its way into the tail light....
I dont know what there is supposed to be right where the gap is, but there is a good amount of space betweeen the light and the body itself... This goes for my next question, is there supposed to be a seal of some kind that is supposed to be around the light??? I think my friend who sold me the car just tampered with it and didnt let me know about these leaks....

Here is a closer view of what i think may be the problem....


It also leaks on the left tail light as well.....


See all that rust???? I think it has been leaking like this for a while, and it has caused some rust.... The arrow is pointing to where it is leaking as well....

The rubber seals inside the tailight surrounding the inner area, is all moist and wet, and it collects and drips.
On the reverse light, the rubber seals remain dry, so really I have no idea on what is causing this... At first I thought it might be the rubber lining surrounding the trunk that might be damaged. But as of now I do not know what is causing water to seep into my trunk..

If anyone can help me out on what I can do, it would definately be of great help, I just got a new amp from my friend... and I dont want to blow it cuz of all the moisture... This sucks, because I live and socal and for the people out here you know it doesnt rain for sh*t out here lol, so I dont get that much chances to see what the problems are besides when I wash my car.

Thanks

Update: today i took out both tailights, and i found out where the leaks are comming from. Then after doing that I connected and plugged back in. But now its weird, because the turn signals do not work. My dash light has never worked, but I still had use of my turn signals. I was wondering may I have fried or done something to the fuses or anything due to me removing my tail lights?

Also... the weirdest thing that struck me was that as I drove my rpm's would stay at 0x, with the needle at the bottom. I was driving for at least 3 blocks without noticing it. I stopped by at a gas station to check it out, and the car ran fine, and started right up. Now I dont know if this has happened to anybody when they were working with electricals in their car, but I know when you do certian things to any wiring, you have to take off the power terminal on the battery...

I will check the fuses tomorrow, because it is raining like crazy, but I am sure I can drive it. But my main concern is if I have done any damage to any thing related to electrical.

I knew today was a bad day to do any work.

Modified by pinks11 at 6:29 PM 11/30/2007


Modified by pinks11 at 6:30 PM 11/30/2007


Modified by pinks11 at 6:30 PM 11/30/2007

 

Those slots are actually the factory water drainage systems... Honda designed our cars to drain the water, not keep it out lol. Same thing with sunroofs.

What I did with mine was to take out the panels on the back, open up the trunk and pour water into that area slowly and watch for leaks anywhere. It's fairly simple to do, and if you have it controlled you can tell where it's leaking into the trunk and fix it. It's actually supposed to funnel the water down to the ground behind the bumper.

Good luck, let us know if/when you try it.

 

yeah that sounds good. I will try it when there is no rain tomorrow, but do you think it has anything to do with the rubber seals on the perimeter of the hole. It's the area where i have the red arrow pointing to and around it... It's spongy and thats where its dripping to. But yeah I will try what you said and see if i can pinpoint the leak. I might take out the tail light to inspect it, becasue I think there are some pieces missing on the outer edge (the plastic). Thanks

 

heh I just fixed this issue in my sedan...Craft foam from walmart will work...thats what I did. make sure you get the longer sheets, 2 sheets per tail light worked for me...

 

haha that sounds good, because i just seen it in my friends 4door, and his still was leaking a bit

 

Update: today i took out both tailights, and i found out where the leaks are comming from. Then after doing that I connected and plugged back in. But now its weird, because the turn signals do not work. My dash light has never worked, but I still had use of my turn signals. I was wondering may I have fried or done something to the fuses or anything due to me removing my tail lights?

Also... the weirdest thing that struck me was that as I drove my rpm's would stay at 0x, with the needle at the bottom. I was driving for at least 3 blocks without noticing it. I stopped by at a gas station to check it out, and the car ran fine, and started right up. Now I dont know if this has happened to anybody when they were working with electricals in their car, but I know when you do certian things to any wiring, you have to take off the power terminal on the battery...

I will check the fuses tomorrow, because it is raining like crazy, but I am sure I can drive it. But my main concern is if I have done any damage to any thing related to electrical.

I knew today was a bad day to do any work.

 

it happened to me all the time i looked at the harness and found that it was rusted in the sockets and was shorting out the lights ,signals,and blowing the fuse that the tach,temp gauge works off. long story short change the harness if its rusty or dry it out if its wet and change the bulbs. fixed me right up.

 

what harness are you talking about? the harness in the fuse box or in the back??? I replaced the 50 amp fuse in the fuse box under the hood, and the 20 amp fuse underneath the dash... But now my reverse lights are acting up... One of them turns on but barely does and its very dim, and the other one is out.
Would I have to get new bulbs???

 

the small harness at the rear on the tail light itself. also the reverse lights on my car are seperate because its a 1991 so that i cant help with sry.

 

I can not really help with the electrical cause I have not had any problems of that such and I learn as I go, but I had a leak in the tailights in my 90 CRX, and it ended up being from the gaskets in the tail lights. I do not even know if in the last 17 years anyone has replaced them, but they were dry rotted to the max. I bought new gaskets and put them in (clean off the body first) and I have not had a problem since....

 

to clarify those "spongy rubber seals" are the gaskets.

 

Yeah electrical work is a bitch. First thing I'd check would be the fuses. Then check for any shorts, or where water could have came in contact with any electrical areas. I am having a very similar problem in my DA, which I will HAVE to sort out tomorrow

As for your leak... There is a couple things you could do to prevent water from coming into your trunk. The best way to handle it is to go buy new tail light gaskets from the dealer, clean up the mateing areas and put your tails back on with the new gaskets. If not, you could always just clean up the gasket and mateing areas, and put some silicone inbetween them, throw it back together and hope it stops the leak, which is what I just tried in my crx.

Another quick way is to simply put a thick line of silicone at the crack area (shown in the 2nd and 3rd pic posted) from one side of the crack to the other. I know it is not the correct way to do it, but it definatly works, I did it in my DA and it has not leaked since...

Just my 2 cents

 

I'm having the EXACT same problem with my EF sedan also....I think I'm gonna try some new tail light gaskets and see if that helps, if not, then Ill try the silicone trick.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by crx2nr822 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I'm having the EXACT same problem with my EF sedan also....I think I'm gonna try some new tail light gaskets and see if that helps, if not, then Ill try the silicone trick. </TD></TR></TABLE>

My brother just told me about the silicone trick too. Is that where you take out the housing and reseal it???

So its the spongy thing that lines around the housing that its leaking?? I think that may be the solution. But there is a lot of water going into the tailight and i think thats how the water is comming in... there is a little hole that water seeps into, and creates a nice little pool on the inside, as well as the outside...

It was weird because I found out last night when I was parking my car at home that the reverse lights work again... maybe water just made contact with the plug and dried up?? anywho, I have some work to do on fixing the leaks. I need to febreeze down the whole car lol