Roof Side Rails 'leaking'

Jabberwocky · Jul 31, 2019

liaoyang said:
@Jabberwocky Ours leaks between the channelled black aluminium rail and the vehicle body and drips onto the step like the op. Was this your problem? If so to clarify, you removed the awning, then the 2 awning brackets then the black aluminium rail and restuck it with 3m tape? Was is difficult to unstick the rail and did you then have to remove what was sticking it before? Cheers

Hi @liaoyang , I had one particularly bad leak as described above that was between the rail and the van body. I did not remove the black aluminium rail. I removed the awning and it's two brackets only. This was required in order that I could place the 3M tape across the bonded joint between the rail and the van body. The tape was applied to the whole length of the bonded joint. Circa 2.5m. The tape was merely applied to exclude water from the bonded joint, not as any form of fixing of the rail to the body.
The tape I used was: https://www.vikingtapes.co.uk/produ...rethane-protective-tape-short-rolls-25mm-x-3m . VW use this type of tape in a number of locations on the van already
Hope this helps.

Ting Tong · Aug 1, 2019

Jabberwocky said:
Hi @liaoyang , I had one particularly bad leak as described above that was between the rail and the van body. I did not remove the black aluminium rail. I removed the awning and it's two brackets only. This was required in order that I could place the 3M tape across the bonded joint between the rail and the van body. The tape was applied to the whole length of the bonded joint. Circa 2.5m. The tape was merely applied to exclude water from the bonded joint, not as any form of fixing of the rail to the body.
The tape I used was: https://www.vikingtapes.co.uk/produ...rethane-protective-tape-short-rolls-25mm-x-3m . VW use this type of tape in a number of locations on the van already
Hope this helps.

Thanks Rik and I understand now. Seems a good solution and interesting to hear how that fares. Ours is going in next week for an oil service and I’m reluctant to mention in case it’s botched with mastic!

Edit: ah it’s so-called helicopter tape: it’s good stuff that.