We have tropical storm Elsa moving through the area since last night. Torrential walls of rain all night. I did put a temporary cover on the roof of my car where it has leaked in the past. I checked it last night and the seat was bone dry. I checked again when I walked the dog this morning, both seats still bone dry. Perfect!

But I had changed from the hard top to the clear top a few months ago. The clear top apparently has a different leak point under heavy rains because I looked again just now and I see the passenger carpet is wet. Super. Just what I wanted to find.

So I will be pulling the interior out to ensure a thorough and rapid dry out of everything. I will also be putting some time into weather stripping and top / window fitments once all is dry before I reinstall the carpeting.

Not that I'm surprised. GM has never been on their game with the T-tops, Targa tops or weather stripping in general.

 

Best of luck getting the carpet/interior dried out and then hopefully finding a fix for the leaks.

 

The happy / easy part is the carpet. Leaks are a pain, but doable to figure out. Trying to get BOTH tops to be leak free seems to be the lark.

My only concern, as anyone's should be on these cars, is electronics and interior moisture / humidity. I'll head to the store later and get a few of those absorber buckets. Once I go through the car with towels it should be 99.99% fine. But I want it bone dry as always.

 

You should clean out the utters. A clogged passenger side utter can cause water to back up into the cabin. I would also put some dielectric grease on all of your weather stripping. These two things may solve your leaking entirely.

 

The udders are all perfectly clean. I reckon it is walking in along the A-pillars and dropping down to the footwell. The rain we had was heavier than a hose on high. Re the udders, I did a ton of maintenance on the car in May like balancer, etc. I kept track and it was over 60 different tweaks, repairs, de-mods, and service related things. Other than this darned leak and one squeak I cannot locate (it goes away as soon as I get out of the car to listen for its location) the car is in top shape. The squeak I do suspect is the relocated MM Gen 3 can which I moved from up in the nose on the frame in an area which was once hidden under the A&A nose shroud to the passenger side head. The squeak has no direct delta to engine RPM, is prevalent when the car's Y-axis is affected on hills, and when I shut the car off it will let out a long low noise like pressure in a line. So I know it isn't the engine or pulleys. I figure when I do this latest set of work on the leak I'll try disconnecting the can and see what comes of the noise or not. If not the can, I wouldn't know where to look for that oddity.

 

Whatever you do hope you never have to replace the windshield. I have had 2 C5's with replaced windshields and the A piller leaks cannot be stopped. I had the shop redoing it several times until there was nowhere else to seal. Drove me nuts. My car now has the original one in it. If it breaks I will ditch car!

 

The windshield on this one was replaced prior to my owning it. I'm the second owner and have had it since 2012. It has never had any leaks from the windshield. The only leaks have been from the windshield molding which leaked at the a pillar along the frame side of it, but has been long since fixed. I had the leaks done except for a driver side light drip under hose pressure which wasn't leaking with rain. That was the body panel top. I swapped to the glass top earlier this year and apparently this one when subjected to torrential downpours allows leaks from the rear passenger corner. So the seat was dry but the carpet soaked.

All in all, a fortunate spot to leak given the 30.hours of waterfall we had.

She is absolutely bone dry right now. I'm still going to keav the absorbers in it at night. But the carpet will need a wet vac and to be pressed out. I don't intend to reinstall it until I can stop this leak. I have a fresh front strip I could use for the windshield. But I need a fresh strip for the hoop to really do this right. So I'll be looking for one on the cheap.

I did also remove the sponge like sound deadening I had installed so long ago. I'll seek out a sealed equivalent to use in case of any future issue. The less absorption the better.

And one score did come from this: I found my missing 15mm ratcheting wrench.

Below: that was a biblical amount of rain water! Now bone dry throughout the car.