Modutop rubber seal

[bigsacs]

Hello again,

I decided to bite the bullet and buy a new rubber seal which joins the modutop roof to the metal edge around it. Mine has been letting in rain water for some time. Attempts to seal it have lasted only until the sealant dries out and loses its properties. The bonded internal seal of the modutop to the roof is fine so no ingress of water to the car interior. I was shocked at a Citroen main stealer asking £316 and promptly purchased more screen sealant. Does anyone know of a cheaper source for the rubber seal or a sealant that keeps its stickyness?

[Jed Clampit]

WOW big money try polyurethane hight adhesive sealer upol pu 18 very strong and flexible look on ebay
number 121326496486 or 311087420948 or 281365027782 or 390406652690

[Kokain]

Polyurethane adhesive definitely. It's sticky and it will mostly work on it's own without even the rubber. These modutop roofs, are they glued or something? If you remove it are you left with a rectangle hole or is there support bar running in the middle to help with rigidity?

[ffrenchie]

Sikaflex or Tiger Seal are the commonest used by coach builders, it holds together most of the buses you see running up and down the country. Mask either side of your join and lay a bead over it then leave it to set and pull your tape off and you can rub it down with wet and dry to tidy it up. Careful though as it does stick really well to anything and is the devil to remove so get some surgical gloves. Get some Captain Tolley's creeping crack cure in there first and you should be pretty watertight.

[homeruk]

http://www.uksealants.co.uk/sikaflex-221...-p215.html

This is good stuff

[bigsacs]

Thanks for the replies. I had been wondering if just the sealant by itself could be done neatly enough to look okay. I've looked at the suggested ones and if l can't find a cheaper price for the rubber then l'll try just sealant. Thanks ffrenchie for suggesting Sikaflex. I've used it on boat decking but never really considered it for the berlingo, the benefit being it can be sanded. Cheers, bigsacs PS Love the new website

[cancunia]

Seems that I'm not the first to have this problem. Has anyone else come up with a solution?
Strange thing is that my 2004 Modutop is fine but the 'new' 2008 seal is allowing water into the join at the front, the water trapped in the channel has caused some rust in the roof but no leaks inside.

[DreamSeeker]

I had this problem on my 2007 multispace and was told by my garage that it would cost more than the car was worth to repair - about £3000!   The replacement trim are so expensive as they have aluminium teeth inside the rubber which bend under the lip of the channel and hold it in.   So i decided to have a look and see if there was anything i could do.  I discovered that i could take out the moulding/trim strip and put it back in again,( you must ensure that the pokey-out-bit on the rubber seal goes under the lip in the gulley before pressing it home).
 
I decided to take half out at a time, but was worried about getting the corners back in the right place so I stuck strips of electrical tape across so that it bridged the trim, i then used a stanley knife to cut the tape either side of the trim so i could match up the trim position with the pieces left on the roof when i put it back in.  Once i worked that out it actually gave me the confidence to take it out completely!  Nothing fell apart! It was actually all quite strong.
 
But i now had access to the gully and like you i had rust in the front corners, mostly the passenger side.  Next a lot of cleaning out of grime, bits of leaf, grit and rust.  It was obvious that during manufacture the trim had not been fitted correctly, some of the trim was not seated properly and looked as if it had just been hammered until it was flat but the aluminium teeth had just been squashed and not tucked under the roof lip so were not holding the trim fast, which was allowing water ingress which was running to the lowest point at the front.
 
It took at lot of TLC to make the trim usable again (i had to cut off a lot of the teeth as they wouldn't straighten) and I knew that it would have to be totally stuck back in and never come out again.  In hindsight it would have been a lot easier to have just filled the gulley after cleaning it and using a lot of Curerust and spray painting where possible.  But the car had only done 25k so i wanted it to look original.
 
Before putting the trim back into its now pristine channel, i taped it with masking tape (there was a feint mark on the paintwork where the edge of the trim came to), but we quickly discovered that the sealant had something in it that made the tape come unstuck so i used electrical tape for that as well and it worked well and came off easily.
 
My hands were not stronge enough to use the sealant gun steadily so my son helped me at this point applying the polyurethane adhesive on the side the trim with the big gap, then we needed to seal the other side that was too small for the sealant nozzle but a 20 ml syringe from the local agricultural merchant worked brilliantly especially as their nozzles are offset to one side and used horizontally could get right in under the trim.  Fill by removing the syringe plunger and using the sealant gun. Several circuits with the syringe (letting it dry inbetween) and it looked a really good job. 

Lots of paper towels, j cloths, surgical gloves and turpentine were essential, no matter how careful you are you get black sticky everywhere!  The turps on some clean cloth very lightly and gently wiped over the sealant would level and smooth it if it was a bit blobby.  The turpentine did not effect the paintwork or the fibreglass of the modutop.

Very pleased with it now and it looks better than it did to start with.  We did have to put some large lead weights on the top of the trim overnight where there were no teeth to hold it in or it was a bit kinky (the original workmanship was appalling), and we also let the adhesive dry between applications.  It was all a bit of a mission and would have been a lot easier knowing what we know now!!!  So hope this is helpful to somebody stuck with the same problem.

[Tomcat3]

Nice write up Dreamseaker this will help others.

[cancunia]

Sounds like you had a lot of work on your hands! From what I could see, mine has only been letting in water at the front so I've cleaned out the channel and the seal then used neutral cure clear silicone to re seal. I ended up running 4 beads of silicon using the uncut tip of the cone, 2 into the channel front & rear, then 1 into the front of the seal, re fitted the seal into the channel, then the 4th under the back of the seal the next day. I needed a couple of blocks of wood weighted down to hold one of the corner pieces in place until the silicone cured overnight. I'm hoping that if the silicon does not seal it will at least take up the space that the water was sitting in, time will tell.
I also have an older Modutop Berlingo, soon to be sold, that has what looks to be a badly fitted seal but somehow does not leak.