Tom and other Sunbeamers:
Bingo! Thanks to your tips and many from other listers on all these issues, I found
the door drain slots. Two of them on the driver's door were plugged, maybe
completely,with rubber bits, cloth strips and dirt. On the passenger side, same deal
too.
Interesting that both rear slots (on both doors) were the worst. This must be where
most of the water wants to exit. I cleaned out as much junk as I could and both doors
should now drain as they're supposed to. I wonder if the design of the rubber trim
piece at the door bottoms doesn't obstruct the drainage, though. It seems like that
rubber would compress with the doors closed and impede water flow. I guess not,
though, as my other Alpines years ago never had this problem. You can see that those
poly sheets inside are necessary too as otherwise water coming down will follow
gravity and flow down the door panels, probably into the car.
I bought some new poly sheeting and cement, etc., and I'm going to hopefully put
everything back together the right way tonight. I also found the source for a rattle
that was driving me nuts. The door lock bar (that goes the length of the door)
originally seems to have had a strip of straw like material behind it to some thin
weatherstrip to take its place. I'm also going to do the same with the driver's door
window which rattles as the inner channel material is likewise gone.
I also looked up under the dash and the caulk around the footwell vents is pretty
brittle. I'm going to press caulking around those and temporarily use clear silicone
around the windshield wipers and washers to seal those up (too lazy to remove them for
new gaskets at the moment). Re: the poly sheeting that originally apparently went from
the bottom of the window channels (looks like the factory put the ends of these sheets
in the channel and then installed the windows) down to direct the water to the drains,
I can't figure where they would be glued at the bottom on the door. I wonder if these
were left loose as the window being lowered will press them down anyway. I also found
that most of the screws holding the window hardware, etc. to the door were loose to
very loose. Interesting that on a couple of these the factory apparently used caulk to
theoretically keep these from loosening out. Didn't work (not for the 32 years
anyway). We'll have to let Rootes know and to find some other way of securing these
for future Alpine and Tiger production. I think we should expect more than 30 years of
service from these parts, after all we've paid for our cars!
After it's all done, I'm going to get a hose in the next couple of days and douse the
car and see if I can find any more leak sources. I'll report the results back to all
of you at Sunbeam HQ.
I was dissapointed in that I did not find any weird articles left over from the
production line inside the doors. Just one window trim strip clip and a washer (that I
must have dropped in there) plus lots of the afore mentioned junk. Some of you have
reported finding interesting objects in there but not me. At first I thought I had as
I found a printed 2" x 2" paper sheet. When I cleaned it up, it turned out to be one
of those advertisements people stick on your windows. This was for a tax accounting
firm. A previous owner must have rolled down the window, sending the ad to the innards
of the door. It did seem to be many years old, though.
Again, as others have mentioned, these are amazing, great lists (Tigers and Alpines)
an no way I'd be able to get this kind of help anywhere else. Many thanks again to
everyone.
Steve Sage
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