Well the rain still comes down around here in buckets and I thought if I put a new hatch seal on the 81 Rabbit I would have less water inside soaking the carpet in back this year. I have to park on a hill with the nose heading downhill and when it rains I was getting water in at the little tray where the back latch is located.
Yesterday morning after nearly 4 inches of water from the skies I climbed in the back, I have no rear seat just solid wood and carpet over the gas tank. I popped off that panel at the latch and shined a bright light in there. I could see that water was coming is from around the push button that opens the latch. There is just enough space between the button and the seal that it leaks. I thought if I could get the button off I could do something about that gap. Well that seems to be what is eluding me.
How do you get the keyed button out of there? Bentley manual says take the three screws out and then simply push the button in until you can get it to clear the piece that is surrounding the button. That piece is holding onto the edges of he back panel. I am not able to get that button to do that. There is a mounting screw hole in a rubber piece that surrounds the button. It sort of holds into a piece of the back panel for stability. I have tried to pull the button down and out while compressing that mounting piece and I still lack the necessary distance to get the lock out.
Anyone have any luck doing this? Maybe some of those that have painted there cars lately. I know I taped off the button and the surrounding rubber spacer as it was easier than removing the lock button.
Thanks, waiting for proper instructions and the rain to quit.
So no one has ever removed a hatch lock successfully? Not sure what to do at this point.
No I am NOT going to silicone it shut I need to get in the back on a regular basis. I just don't want to open it up to a big puddle of water every time.
I've just jiggled and pushed until it came out Hard to explain how I did it.
Been having too much rain on the weekends to try and deal with this. Going for massive baking of cookies this weekend due to rain. So I just will have to wait and hope the carpets don't go green on me. It seemed to move back fine only to a point though. Then I couldn't get any movement out of it. Was not in the best of light or mood to deal with it. Then it started to rain. Closed it up an called it quits.
when i get in a little jam, like you have i take it ready to come out to one of my guys, sometimes a shop can just get it done, like 'pop' and its out. ?. if you get it to the next step your mood will pick up.
Maybe if it isn't wet and dreary tomorrow I might take a second stab at it. The cookies help the mood.
Well it took until today to get back to this problem. No rain for two days so finally got the lock out by pushing up on the rubber part that has the threaded part in it. That squeezed the whole thing enough that it popped past the lip of metal that is part of the hatch.
Once the mechanism was in hand I had to clean off the old lube that was caked on to find a pin the secures the finger to the back of the lock. Once that was off I could pop that spring ring out and the whole internals sort of popped up and out as it is under a good amount of pressure with the spring in there. I carefully dissected it cleaning each piece so it would go back together better. I finally got the key cylinder out and lo and behold that weather ring that keeps water from coming into the tumbler was totally in pieces and doing next to no good. I replaced that and threw on an extra O ring to get a better seal between the hard plastic case and the push button. So as the rain is supposed to come back tomorrow I will check to see if this little problem has gone away.
I own a couple of older rigs and this slow leak due to degraded weather seals is killing the interior of them both. We had a bout of really cold weather and it is such a pain to have to scrape both sides of the windshield in the morning. Or wait for the defroster to melt the inside. Hoping this cures the incoming water problem.