my seals look well past there due date, but i dont seem to get water in the car unless I spray a hose at the window.

I would going to post about protecting the roof with a sealant too, I think this helps massivly, I have recently 303'd mine to great results I belive that as the water beads so well it cannot sit and soak into the material causing leaks.

Found it ... i *THINK*

1. the inner front rubber seal had 'crossed' over on top of the roof rail and wasn't making a seal between the metal and the roof. Any water running down it would track instantly over into the inside of the roof.

2. https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.n...60142946_n.jpg

You can see the inner rubber seal isn't flush up against the roof and it should be. That's the only way that I can see for water to make it into the rain rail undetected. The foam in that area was also very wet. I suspect Because water has been soaking through it.

So why is there water in there? I guess the roof is old and a degree of moisture gets in and once things are 'damp' it self seals but when it gets a soaking, water is being drawn in through the gap between the seal and the metal and that's where it fills into the inner roof rail.

The metal cable you can see in the middle of that is the roof tensioning cable - it's that being pulled tight that makes the seal between the seals and the frame . It lterally runs right over it which, is why I think it matters when your roof doesn't clamp tightly - not enough tension in the cable to form a seal. My passenger side has ALWAYS been easier to close on the latch because it was never quite as tight.

I've removed the roof fabric, removed and refitted the inner seal, once the roof material is removed it slides nicely onto the rail and sits flush against the foam. Then stick the roof material back down and then the outer seal rail clamps down to hold it all. Then you refit the outer seal on top of that.

I might not have fixed but i'm bloody sure that's the place it gets in.

Bone dry this morning in the car despite heavy rain last night. Opened the roof partially and nothing shot out of the roof rail on either side and there's no water in either seal. Looking at the weather, it's going to get another good test today so we'll see.

Sounds promising.
What did you use to stick the material back over the seal?

Just re-used what was there and lined it up carefully, it still had plenty of stick in it. When the roof is partially open, that area isn't under any kind of tension so you use the outer seal rail to clamp it back in place.

Touch wood, no leaks yet on my MY09

Right - several HARD downpours today and it still leaks. However i had to fully open the roof to get the water to shoot out, this time there wasn't enough to swill out under acceleration or braking. I'll take it properly to bits when we get a proper dry spell and seal the area up with fresh double sided tape. I suspect I need to remove the soft top from the leading edge of the roof frame to properly do this so it's not something I want to do between heavy showers.

Interesting update using the info from unclefester regarding the metal rail.
I removed the metal rails.
I used some black sealant (Halfords sell it) that comes in a tube and put (quite a bit) behind on the roof underneath where the metal rails sit. I ensured the screw holes were covered and made sure there was a continuous line of sealant all the way where the rail sits on the outside edge and near the front (as I assume these locations are where water is getting in.
Screwed the rail back on (some squashed sealant oozed out from underneath but I left that there)

So, basically the same idea as unclefester but using sealant rather than a strip of foam.

No leaks since (so far!)........

I too had a GT in the past with no roof leak problems. I've had my new roadster now for just less than a month and had no problems until yesterday... I'm sure many of you know about the storm we had in Newcastle 2 weeks ago. The thing is my car had no problems even in that. It only started after I spent 5 hours washing it yesterday afternoon. I thought it might just be a little water trapped in spaces I could'nt reach and thought nothing more of it. However after last nights rain (nothing out of the ordinary), I got in my car before to find water had been streaming down the door and into the large speaker. Opened the roof and water poured out from the metal rails.
Anyways I can't help thinking I may have damaged something with my jetwash during my cleaning session. Anyone think this is possible? I've jetwashed my previous GT before and not had problems. And the previous owner of my current 09 roadster only did 4.5k miles so I don't think it can be due to wear and tear on the seals/foam.
I'll try to take a proper look when/if the weather improves :(

A few more (wet) days have passed and still no leak or collection of water in rails!

Hope that's it! No more wet shoulders :D