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I've recently had some strange behaviour of the electronic parking brake and rear wing and am fairly sure this is what was causing the problem.
See the pictures below.
Found a non trivial amount of standing water in the wheel well and started to dry this up with towels. From the rust stains, it must have been there for several weeks as it has not rained here for at least 2 weeks.
Looking for your recommendations on what to do here as I'm trying not to lose my 'stuff' lol.
Some questions.... Hoping this is salvageable as everything seems to be working except the epb and rear wing, so far!
For the time being, i've covered the fuel filer cover as I found some standing water in the rubber boot surrounding the gas cap and rains is forecasted. Thinking I'll run out and get a car cover asap. (in addition to cleaning out the garage so I can park inside!)
1. How much more disassembly should I be doing to try and dry things up ASAP?
2. Is the black liner with the hump in the trunk removeable and if so, how might I do this? It appears there may be more water under here?
3. What electronics might be affected by this and what else should I be looking for?
Let me know of any questions or more pictures you man need me to take.
Any and all thoughts and opinions appreciated!
rust on tools
standing water in wheel well
another tool shot
another wheel well shot as I'm drying
first thing I noticed
Sam
Last edited by sam08861; Aug 29, 2017 at 05:32 PM.
That's right, It appears that the gas filler area was the culprit as I found standing water there. Cleared that and taped it up as in the 2nd picture in the 1st post, just in case as we've got a bit of rain forecast tonight.
The drains from the spoiler/trunk appeared to be bone dry as the tubes are somewhat translucent so easy to inspect. In fact I had just recently run some plastic trimmer string through to clear out some cobwebs on the end of the left side.
Sigh, where to begin!
I understand that bentley may have a 'splice' for the wire loom that might be affected?
Are you aware that there is a drain hole at the lower rear area of the fuel filler, around the 8 o'clock position.
Normally needs an air line blowing through it.
After I did mine, I gave it a good squirt of WD40 in case it was Spiders setting up home in there. No problems since.
yep, I did see the small white drain hole and cleared it with some braided steel cable. Thanks for the tip on the Wd 40! I'll do that and give it a blast of air when I get home this evening.
Take the cover underneath the boot lid off and see if that is wet.
I had leaking plastic covers for the spoiler drains, fixed with some silicone and self tappers.
Yep, that's the second thing I did after getting the standing water dried up. I do have a bent cable for the spoiler so will post a photo when I get home from work this evening.
Here's the bent /seperated tubing for the cable to the spoiler.
I've managed to realign them but thinking how to keep them together as this just dis-assembles itself when the wing is activated. The bottom of the black compression fitting is cheap plastic. They should have used metal. I've put some crazy glue around the perimeter of the bottom tube, so have them in place, but doubt this will hold.
Wondering if I can use brake line clamps or something to better hold the tubing in place. I saw on another post someone was making their own metal parts, but am not sure how.
It looks like the whole spoiler will need to come out in order to get to the ends of the tubing and I really can't see how as the metal tubes are welded at one end to a metal plate and the other end goes into a big plastic junction, where it seems to be glued in.
I was able to remove the motor, rerun the cables and then I epoxied the outside of the lower metal tube and put the upper one over it, epoxying them together without getting any glue into the insides of the tubes. Seems the plastic compression fitting on the bottom is made of cheap plastic and is a known failure point.
This is working for now and if it comes apart again, I'll see if I can't fabricate a mechanical method of holding them together.
Before fixing completely, I did follow the sequence at the links below to disable motor and trick the trouble light from going on. Specifically, ExoticCarDriver's posts for disabling.
Unfortunately, the dealers solutions is to replace the whole assembly at several thousand $$$.
Hopefully the epoxy job holds for a while, but getting to the assembly is pretty easy, with 1 t20 torx screw and several metal body tabs that hold the carpet to the trunk. There's also plastic a strip similalry secured where the trunk, sorry 'boot' close button is.
btw, the elec problems seem to cleared up after drying out the area under the spare tire and taking care of the independent problems with the spoiler and EPB switch.
Fixing the spoiler and replacing EPB switch, I am no longer getting trouble codes or weird behaviour. (knock on wood it stays this way!)
Also, we had 12hrs or so straight of rain and the trunk is dry, so the drain clearing seems to have resolved the root cause of the leak/water pooling issue.
I've taken mine apart without removing the whole spoiler.
Under the boot lid you can remove the motor and the bracket holding the tubes which will allow you to reinsert the inner cables. My clips are small plastic ones with cable ties on each end (I've been told by a very reliable source the cable ties are a Bentley mod). The clips are part number 1C0827658 RETAINING CLIP £9.22 from Flying Spares here in the UK.
