thanks for the great write up. my trunk is leaking and i need to fix it.
where can you buy that bitumen spray? how good is it at sound deadening? i assume that it is a rather dense/heavy material.

 

Most auto/hardware stores should have it. Its not bad at sound deadening!

 

^^ cool. thanks for the reply. im gonna go out and get some today

 

Good work! I'm going to look at this tonight!

 

This has nothing to do the the original question/write-up but this is a good place to mention that on my brand new car a very faint rust line was noted by me at the leading edge of the top of the trunk lid.
I've only had the car for a few months and to date I've only applied a very thin coat of white lube.
This is something I'm going to monitor continously over the life of the car. Everyone else might also want to check theirs.

 

i've actually done this before and the sealer comes loose after a time.. it's probably due to the vibration that shakes loose whatever you use to seal it.

another solution that i'm trying is to use weather stripping that you can get from any body shop. that stuff is more designed for vibration and movement, which any liquid sealant/silicon isn't...

yup.. i had this exact same problem about 5 years ago, but just haven't gotten aroudn to posting anything! my bad, but hopefully my experience with using a silicone sealant will be useful advice to you guys!

 

thank you Thank You THANK YOU.

Found water in my trunk last night, couldn't figure it out. I'll seal 'er up tomorrow.

 

Another source of water can come from clogged rain gutter drain pipes. These drain the water from the roof on both sides. When I changed my top I found that the drains were clogged and due to backup would cause water to leak into the area under the rear tray behind the seats. So water and debris sitting in the clogged drain and water entering into the car from this can also create a musty smell inside the car.

The "sinks" that connect to these drains are just behind the door on each side.

"sink"


Drain under sink, see water marks/stains

 

Thank you for the pics Random1. I have same problem with my 03 S2000.
Would you suggest easiest way to clean up the pipe?

 

This is a little bit of thread jacking, but related...

I'm not sure what to do with the top on the car. I removed the sink and cleaned it and the drain pipe when the top was off. Access looks difficult with the top installed. With the top down maybe some water could be added to the sink on each side and then sucked out with a shop vac. A small pipe may need to be adapted to the shop vac get down in there. Liquid Plummer? Check the drainage before and after your work to see if there is an improvement.

There are some additional photos that may help at the link below. Good luck.

http://www.pbase.com/rsrock/top_replace