When I open the back door water gushes into the back of the van. But water also seems to be getting into the back without my opening the door.

I am hoping this is something I can fix myself. My van is in the shop right now getting probably over $1000.00 of work done. It's getting new tie rods and ball joints and a tune up. I don't think I can afford to take it to a body shop right away to get the leak fixed.

This van is so expensive to repair. It has 152,000 miles on it, it had 105,000 on it when it was given to me.

 

> When I open the back door water gushes into the back of
>the van. But water also seems to be getting into the back
>without my opening the door.

After I replaced the tailgate and glass (separately), I had a devil of a time getting the glass to not leak. Three trips to two different glass shops. They like to snap off the little 6mm studs, too.

>This van is so expensive to repair. It has 152,000 miles on
>it, it had 105,000 on it when it was given to me.

I, too, have had to invest a pile of money in mine. Other than the AT, I can only assume (from the lack of repair problems that others here have had) that mine was run hard and put away wet. Bought it for $600 in '99 w/141k miles, put about $4k in it in the first year (AT rebuild, valve job, rack and pinion, PS pumps, fuel pump, three injectors, belts, radiator, hoses, A/C work, dead power windows, rear axle assy, driveshaft rebuild, and on and on), nearly nothing since then.

Regards,
Al S.

 

I have a 1993 Aerostar that has a leak in the rear. After using newspaper to locate the area of the leak. I found it was coming from around the right rear window frame. It will entail removing the interior trim and checking the exact location of the leak but I can fix it myself as you probably can also. Hope this helps.Tom

 

>I have a 1993 Aerostar that has a leak in the rear. After
>using newspaper to locate the area of the leak. I found it
>was coming from around the right rear window frame. It will
>entail removing the interior trim and checking the exact
>location of the leak but I can fix it myself as you probably
>can also. Hope this helps.Tom


thanks but I think it's the back window. When I raise the back door water gushes in and down onto the carpet in the back. But it does also seem to get wet when I don't open the back at all and it has had a chance to try out.

 

>I think it's the back window. When I raise the
>back door water gushes in and down onto the carpet in the
>back. But it does also seem to get wet when I don't open
>the back at all and it has had a chance to try out.

You'll want to remove the window's inside surround trim. You have to disconnect both hatch lift cylinders to do that, so get yourself a pushbroom or similar to hold up the hatch -- it's heavy!.

Unscrew the lock button top and remove it.
If you have a defrosting rear window, ISTR that you have to remove the two wires from the glass. Be very careful, because it's easy to start to pull the male spade terminal right off the glass!

Then remove the several screws holding the large trim piece on. Note that the screw lengths vary, so keep track of which one came from which hole. Also, the screws go into fibreglas, so when you put them back in, don't get carried away: the holes strip very easily.

Once you have the surround off, you can do the hose trick: You get inside, with the hatch closed, and someone else goes around the glass (starting at the bottom edge) with a moderate flow (not a focussed, sharp spray) while you watch for water on the inside edge of the glass. It's not too hard to pin down a leak, once the "covers" are off.

If you decide for some reason to pull off the lower trim, round up the replacement trim clips beforehand, if possible. They're around .40-.50 each, available from Ford in 10-packs, or other auto stores. Don't try to reuse them, they're one-time-use only, or they come loose from repeated closing of the hatch. I had to give up and use trim screws on mine, my backing got too rotted from a leak before I got it.

Regards,
Al S.