Soaking wet seatbelt
 

Alright, here's the problem. I've gone out to my car the last few times after it's been raining pretty hard and I sit down, and put my seatbelt on and i notice that it is all wet. I thought for a while maybe that I was just getting it caught in the door and it was getting wet that way but i made sure this time and that wasn't it. The end near the buckle part of it is dry, but the more I pull it out farther and farther into the belt is more wet.

There isn't anything else that is wet inside the car. The only thing I can think of would be if my sunroof drains have all of a sudden sprung a big leak, if they even run right there that is, or that there are evil forces at work in my car.

Any ideas?

There are 4 sunroof drain tubes.
The driver side tubes are probably clogged.

Use canned air to blast it out. Not a coathanger :-p If those lines get disconnected, bad things happen!.

You can also take some 16 gauge wire and run it down the length of the tube. I had to do that every time I washed my '83...parking under trees sucked.

I tore my passenger side apart this evening, to find that drain tube and see if I could fix the problem. I can't find the tube anywhere, the lap belt on the passenger side is soaked and part of the carpet on the passenger side behind the seat is wet. I pulled off the b pillar lower cover and still didn't see any tube, but I did notice that there was a little water under there on a small cover in there. (i'll see if I can take some pictures tomorrow when it's light out). I have the carpet partially pulled up along the door and removed the seatbelt metal retainer thingy. Where exactly is that drain tube supposed to be?

Hey man, that's not so bad! Once at a junkyard, I was checking out this DSM, and it had a pool of water in the spare tire area. I had to pop the drain plug out and let it take a wee before moving it,:lol2:

hey, my car does this too- everytime I wash it my belt's soaking wet. But when it rains, it's not, so I think it's my drivers door seal since it comes loose a lot. Have you checked the door seals on your car?

Well, good luck fixin it!

mine does it. probably the rear drain tubes. it does it on the passenger side as well. i just started pulling the seat belts out about a foot or so and hooking it to the seat adjuster on the bottom of the seat. keeps it a bit dryer.

never had this problem with any of my fc's, pull the b-pillar trim and check whats going on with those drain tubes!

I pulled the lower b pillar cover, and i can see a little bit of water following the wheel well and down to the seatbelt. i don't see a hose at all. i have a feeling after i took my car to herzog (after my car was broken into) to have it fixed, they probably for some reason pulled that drain hose out on accident and didn't want to have to pull the headliner to fix it. they replace all the seals on the doors. so i know those are good.


also...the dealer i bought this car from about 4 years ago? had the seal around the sunroof replaced. but didn't have this problem till after herzog had my car.

first off...sorry for the big pictures

I think I found out where it is leaking....That drain/air thing in the hatch, not sure exactly what it is but I think water is getting around it, put the car outside and sprayed it down with somebody inside and it was just pouring in. Going to have to let it dry, clean it and put some silicone or something around it. Does anybody know how to get it out?

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u...terleak001.jpg


also, I took the drivers side lower b pillar cover off and found a water tube, the pass side does not have one...

it's comming in where that towel is, then leakind down to the seatbelt area...
http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u...terleak006.jpg

here's the water tube on the drivers side....
http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u...erleak0072.jpg

i put silicone around it now.....24 hours till it can get wet though....hopefully that works...
http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u.../waterleak.jpg

that first silicone i used didn't work, so i got some 3M brand made for cars. that worked, then it got really cold outside for a couple weeks with some snow, now it's leaking again. I didn't totally get all of old silicone off so i'm going to take it all off and use only the 3M stuff and see....gosh this sucks

Well, I guess I forgot to post saying that the 3M stuff did work....welll...untill now, 10 months later. We just had our first real rain. Same thing as before, seatbelt soaking, wet under the carpet on the passenger side. I opened up the hatch, took off the cover to the drain/air vent and found that the 3M auto sealer stuff I used got hard, and cracked. So I'm guessing that's my problem, I took it all off and put on some window sealer caulk (just from home depot, not auto specific) I let it sit in a garage for a day and a half and then put it outside. It rained really hard last night, I checked it this morning and the passenger lapbelt is soaked again. I'll try re sealing, and if that doesn't work, I'll try some gutter sealer. If one of these doesn't work I'm not sure what to do.

I'm tempted to try some RTV or "the right stuff" gasket maker

Did you ever clean the rear sunroof drain tubes? Take the b-pillar trim off, the a-pillar/window plastic trim off, and the trim piece off at rear of the headliner. Pull the headliner down a bit from the rear, you will see a black tube coming down off of each side that run into the b-pillar above the seat belt top mounting location.

Mine was clogged on the driver side one time and would soak the seat belt and behind the driver's seat any time that the car was outside in the rain.

Josh

I don't think that's it because last time when I was testing it, I took a hose to the side/hatch part of the car and didn't spray the top of the car at all. Water was coming in pretty good just spraying where the vent is in the hatch. So I don't think it's the sunroof drain tube. And when I poured water into the vent in the hatch, it drained under the car without a problem.

ok, this time I used window sealer caulk. That worked for a couple weeks, even washed my car and it was all dry inside. But now again, after a hard rain, it leaked again. Haven't had time to look at it yet, but if the caulk softened up or cracked I'll try gutter sealer. I'll get some pictures today and post them, and try not to let them get deleted...

jb weld that shit man.

You really think JB weld would work? Is it flexible? I'm thinking my car is too stiff or when I go up a driveway at an angle, it flexes and the stuff gets detached or something.

I couldn't see any holes or anything...

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u...h_a867437e.jpg

RTV has never failed me before

i friggan use it instead of /on top of some of my coolant and oil gaskets, and it has never leaked ONCE

Any certain type of rtv you would recommend? I know I've seen like 5 different types of it, but never used it.