Well gang, here's a topic that's been beat to death...but let's give it another swing shall we?

I saw an old forum thread where a guy put a Halloween fog machine in his car and with all the windows up, turned it on which showed all the air leaks in the cabin.  Specifically, he did it to find where exhaust was sneaking into the cabin when driving with the windows were down.

I gave that a shot this evening and found that it is my taillight gaskets, but the strange thing is they are brand new from Motorsport.  We even removed the black trim surrounds and bolted them back to the body and you can see the smoke sneaking around the gasket edges regardless of how tight we make the bolts holding the gasket to the body.

The gaskets are reasonably squishy (I have no idea how gummy these are supposed to be but they are very pliable).  I did notice that the plastic housing has raised bumps where the mounting bolts come through which would mean the gasket wouldn't be laying flush in the areas between these bolt bumps, right?  Was I supposed to install these with gasket maker between the rubber gasket and housing?

Edited May 3, 20231 yr by chaseincats
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If you want the Seal n Peel stuff Amazon has it.

Amazon.com: Dap 18354 Seal 'N Peel Removable Caulk, 10.1-Ounce : Industrial & Scientific

1 hour ago, w3wilkes said:

If you want the Seal n Peel stuff Amazon has it.

Amazon.com: Dap 18354 Seal 'N Peel Removable Caulk, 10.1-Ounce : Industrial & Scientific

Yep, that exact one will be here tomorrow

Update:

The seal 'n peel arrived.

I put an outline of it on the housing, let it sit for 10 min, plopped the gasket on top, then put an outline on the car body and popped the lights in.  I set them in with the bolts finger tight, waited about 30 minutes, then cranked them in (but that part wasn't on the directions), and now we wait.

I will probably use a bunch of duct tape to bridge the body to the housing from the inside of the car as well once everything is dry and in retrospect, this might be all you need to do haha.

More to come.

Edited May 11, 20231 yr by chaseincats

Maybe try without the tape first. Otherwise you wont know if the seal and peel actually worked

Fingers crossed.

How will you know? Just using your nose to verify, or do you have a smoke machine?

2 minutes ago, Captain Obvious said:

Fingers crossed.

How will you know? Just using your nose to verify, or do you have a smoke machine?

I'll just use my nose.  If I still smell it I'll seal it with tape and if that doesn't work I'll see if my friend can borrow the smoke machine again.

On 5/3/2023 at 5:14 PM, chaseincats said:

You didn't use the pre-made ones from a Z parts distributor?

SORRY for the late reaction but my internet provider was being stupid again... AAARRGGHH...  I tested for free some days tv via internet and decided it's no good.. so i told them to stop it and... they stopped the complete internet connection!  ( They have the IQ of a BRICK! 🥵)

It's not fun to have no internet for a week! Especially when your sick and on your own..... 😒

To answer your question.. i had the orig. seals but to be sure it is water tight (and fumes tight) i used some of the window sealer that stays soft. If i ever have to remove them they come off easy and the soft rubber can be scraped off easely.
But i believe you have already finished the job.

Edited May 11, 20231 yr by dutchzcarguy

Well if this works I’ll follow suit because my car smells of exhaust in the cabin pretty bad . I’m sure I’m getting mild carbon monoxide poisoning to some degree. I do have an extra gas mask from when I was in the military maybe I can just drive around with that on the meantime [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]

8 hours ago, dutchzcarguy said:

SORRY for the late reaction but my internet provider was being stupid again... AAARRGGHH...  I tested for free some days tv via internet and decided it's no good.. so i told them to stop it and... they stopped the complete internet connection!  ( They have the IQ of a BRICK! 🥵)

It's not fun to have no internet for a week! Especially when your sick and on your own..... 😒

To answer your question.. i had the orig. seals but to be sure it is water tight (and fumes tight) i used some of the window sealer that stays soft. If i ever have to remove them they come off easy and the soft rubber can be scraped off easely.
But i believe you have already finished the job.

That sounds like the seal 'n peel clear silicone sealer we ended up using

UPDATE: So I drove the car today after letting the sealnpeal cure for 7 days like it says on the package and I'm happy to say it is CONSIDERABLY better.  The only time you smell exhaust now is if you really give it some gas.  We are going to give it another smoke session to see where the final culprit is but this is definitely something everyone should do.

As a side note, this did allow me to now notice there's a gas smell periodically.  The interesting thing is though, you will only smell gas near the fuel pump when the car is running - with the car off the smell disappears.  I smelled outside the right rear tire after shutting the car off and it is pretty noticeable but no gas smell coming from vapor tank area at least when the car is off.  Any ideas what to check?  I'm assuming the answer is 'all the fuel pump hoses' but I just don't understand how the car can smell while running but a split hose somehow seals itself when the car is off.

 Maybe a pin hole that only opens under pressure?

You’re probably don’t have a fuel pressure gauge installed after the filter to monitor pressure . I noticed on mine, fuel pressure would bleed down. Never interfered with starting even cold at 0 pressure. Builds quickly while starting. Check the fuel damper next to the pump. Probably going to need a mirror to really look at everything carefully or get an inexpensive endoscope camera from Amazon that’s blue tooth. Valuable tool.