First trip = Leak at the front and leisure battery issue

[sciroccotune]

Hi Chaps,

Fresh back from my first camping adventure (Witton castle very cool, 1 other t25 there so hi to you ) im in need of some advice regarding water ingress at the front.

It happens when raining (as you would expect ) and comes in behind the fuse box on the drivers side of my LHD camper. I have looked behind cluster tio get a view of this area and can seem to find a place it could be coming in, if i bend my hand round up into the A pillar it may be coming from there???

Its only a drip but over night it will get about 100ml of water under the front rubber flooring that im having to mop up.

What do you guys think? Windscreen seal? It guess it must be it just looks ok....


Second issue is that my leisure batteries dont seem to charge/hold charge. The charging system seems to work as they go to 12v with the engine running but dont seem to hold charge,.

What do people recommend for this, should i get them both an the battery charger in the house?


thanks guys !

[kevtherev]

yes give them batteries a good belt with the charger.

The charging system seems to work as they go to 12v with the engine running

that's just not enough mate, you batteries should be showing 13.5 to 14v when the engine is running.
you may need a new brush pack for the alternator

[1664]

What do you guys think? Windscreen seal? It guess it must be it just looks ok....

Check the washer jet seals and aerial mount before you do anything too drastic. NOTE you cannot pull the washer jets out without ruining them, although they are pretty easy to get hold of and cost a fiverish each.

[sciroccotune]

That's just not enough mate, you batteries should be showing 13.5 to 14v when the engine is running.
you may need a new brush pack for the alternator

Ill check, could have been more than 12v, it was cold and dark but new reg may be in order and i may even have one in the box of bits if im lucky!

Check the washer jet seals and aerial mount before you do anything too drastic. NOTE you cannot pull the washer jets out without ruining them, although they are pretty easy to get hold of and cost a fiverish each.

I did think the wiper arms for a while but wasnt sure. Ill try and tape these up before I remove the screen - good advice! Im more of a head first kind of guy but normally ends up with excess work!

[mirams]

Water there is normally from the bottom corner of the windscreen - carefully lift up the seal there and look for obvious holes!

[CovKid]

Chances are its coming in via the lower corners of your windscreen and you'll find (if you lift the rubbers slightly) that its rotting away in there. Chickenkoop and I are planning on doing three vans in one day next spring - ie remove all three screens, repair/replace rot, refit and seal all three windscreens.

[sciroccotune]

i do have a bit of rot there, so maybe thats the case, but its not that much. Do you think that taping over it would stop it for a test?

[Damien]

For a test it will indeed do, see quite a few vans with tape on the corners mate

[sciroccotune]

For a test it will indeed do, see quite a few vans with tape on the corners mate

Maybe i can just get some nice tape??

[CovKid]

You can but you need to address this ultimately. If you can thoroughly dry that area (not easy this time of year) you can squeeze clear aquatic silicon sealant under the rubber lip to temporarily seal it. You only need a tiny speck of rot for water to seemingly gush in. My theory is that the water actually collects in the bit between glass and rubber and it then works its way through into the rot beneath. The reason I say that is water will still come in even if vehicle has been parked overnight. The moment you pull away, it dribbles in.

Not so far seen one single T25 without this problem to a larger or lesser degree and one thing Chickenkoop and I will be looking at is a way of redesigning this area so either water has a more natural path via a drainage pipe or there is no way it can get in there to start with. There are several 'traps' on the T25 and we've addressed a few of them in our repair/restoration efforts. Neither of us see ANY point in patching something only for the problem to happen again later on, so we tend to approach any repair work on that basis, throwing ideas back and forth until we come up with the best solution that retains the normal look and shape of the vehicle but 'improved', and when you think about it, this is what VW would have done had the T25 continued to be produced today.

[sciroccotune]

CovKid

Looks like it may be the corners as suggested! The tape seems to have kept it dry, although there hasn't been any major rain yet.

So i would be interested in your next vid showing how to repair this area

[CovKid]

I'm also informed by member Oldin, that they can also leak from behind the headlight - something new I've learnt. We won't do windscreen repair this side of winter but we will be covering it in depth with video etc in the Spring.