Sealing the rear clusters

Tripper · Post by **Tripper** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 6:11 am

Sorry, I seem to be hogging the forum lately. Happens, when you inherit dad's car. Anyway, she's booked in to have some rust removed and a few touch up's. Plus the rear clusters have to be removed and resealed. What is your advice regarding the sealer? Sikaflex or Tiger Seal?
Many thanks.

rpruen · Post by **rpruen** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 6:46 pm

Any sort of good quality exterior sealant. Sikaflex would be about the best. Once you seal them in they won't be removable without smashing them, so be sure to do a good job, as you can't fix a small leak later.

Richard

Matthew Brennan · Post by **Matthew Brennan** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 7:10 pm

Wow this looks good stuff:

http://www.sika.co.uk/tech-elseal-bond.htm

I used mastic (clear stuff) on mine and it lasted for the winter, now it's started to come away and be a bit leakalicous now.

are these 480's known for having leaks at all? I hope they are not as I live somewhere very rainy.

Matt

Tripper · Post by **Tripper** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 7:51 am

Thanks rpruen. As I'm getting the work done by a Kiwi re-paint specialist who's never before heard of, seen or worked on a 480, guess it's best to avoid sealing stuff that fixes the clusters permanently?
So what sealer do you think would be best?
Cheers from New Zealand

480_rocket · Post by **480_rocket** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 9:28 am

When I put new clusters on the back of mine, I found some guy on ebay.de (Germany) selling new seals for the lights. It was basically a gasket of high density foam/rubber. I applied clear silicone sealent to both sides of this gasket and put the clusters on. No leaks and that was almost 2 years ago.

pol · Post by **pol** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 9:31 am

are these 480's known for having leaks at all? I hope they are not as I live somewhere very rainy.

-Uh oh.... You better hang on to that tube of sealant!

They do tend to leak through the rear lights, there is some help in the FAQ section of the main site, but i'd ignore the bit about the 'kit on a roll' - i'm not sure its that easy to find / is even called that. Sillicone seems to have done the job for me again, but i like the sound of this silkaflex stuff. I did mine in a bit of a hurry so will be re-doing some time. I think thats the key actually! The seal had broken and the lights moved away from previous silicone fixes...

pol

rpruen · Post by **rpruen** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 8:44 pm

Tripper wrote:Thanks rpruen. As I'm getting the work done by a Kiwi re-paint specialist who's never before heard of, seen or worked on a 480, guess it's best to avoid sealing stuff that fixes the clusters permanently?
So what sealer do you think would be best?
Cheers from New Zealand

The problem is that anything that will seal long term is going to fall into the non-removable group. If it's done properly, then you should never need to remove the clusters, unless one gets broken. If it's already broken smashing isn't an issue.

The volvo seals are some sort of closed cell foam. The problem is after a while it shrinks and starts to leak.

Kit on a roll is a sort of pre-extruded bead of putty type stuff on a plastic / wax paper roll. It's semi-setting so may allow removal later, but would need care to avoid cracking the lights getting them out.

Richard