After posting tips on repairing your CUCV, I always get questions about
certain topics of common problems that I have had experience with and don't
care to share them with you. I thought this one would be a good one to
write about tonight. It is dealing with water leaks to the interior of your
Blazer or P/U truck. In many cases they may be obvious, or you can get in
your truck and have someone hose down the entire truck until you find it.
Sometimes this won't work and you won't get it to leak no matter what you do
and next morning after a good rain, the floor is full of water!
Frustrating! I'll deal with the most common problem leaks that plague this
vehicle family.
Here's what I have found:
REAR FLOOR OR CARGO AREA: (1)Make sure (some don't have these antenna wire
holes) the holes that have been drilled in the fiberglass top for the radio
antenna wire is stopped up with either a good grommet or filled with Bondo
or equivalent. (2)Gasket around side glass on the fiberglass top has shrunk
and there is a gap where ends meet on bottom edge of glass that allow water
entry. (very common) (3)Gasket stripping on the perimeter of the removable
top is missing, shrunk, bad or not installed correctly. These leaks may
also be intermittant at times. Also check the seal around the tailgate
glass. All of this is still available from Chevrolet.
FRONT FLOOR on either side filling up with water: (1)MOST COMMON are the
door gaskets being worn out, missing or parts of either frayed. When
restoring a CUCV, NEW door gaskets are always recommended and this also will
make a "tighter" truck and cut down on wind noise too. An old gasket will
deform and will always leak in the top front portion. Water will drip into
glove box on the right side and into the instrument cluster on the left so
this is an important step to take! The gaskets are the same for R or L side
and are available from Chevrolet. Gasket stripping is easy to install.
Parramore Surplus in Florida used to have these NOS but may be out. Also
you can go to a body shop supply house and buy aftermarket gasket on a roll
but be sure to bring a sample. (2)Front firewall cowl leaking due to
deteriorated seamseal compound used in assembling the body sheet metal
parts. Underneath the vented cowl which hides the windshield wiper
transmissions, is a large cavity. You may have a leak in the bottom of this
area. Silicone sealer is good here and apply liberally-use the black stuff
as it seems to work better or whatever else you feel comfortable using.
Vented cowl is easy to remove after you remove the wiper arms. You can also
double check by holding a garden hose here!
The Military issued an order to remove all factory floor mats with or
without the jute soundproof backing. Any water trapped under the rubber mat
will cause the floors to rust through. (moisture in cold weather too!)
Most CUCV's that escaped this order that have the floor mat ass'y still in
place will almost always find rust under these mats. HERE'S A GREAT TIP-if
you are familiar with the RhinoCoat spray-on coating system or other brands
of similar coatings, consider having this done to your floorboards. Black
is the color of choice here. On the Blazer, it can be done next to the door
gasket stripping and do away with the aluminum threshold plates. It not
only protects the floor from rusting through, but looks like a factory floor
mat, can be washed out if you track in mud or use your vehicles in serious
four wheeling and CUTS DOWN ON TIRE, DIESEL AND ROAD NOISE especially if it
is applied around the rear wheel wells on the M1009 Blazer. Also if you
cannot stop a leak, water can stand down there and not hurt anything. I'll
cover more on what you can do to cut down on noise later. The most amazing
thing about RhinoCoat is after it is applied, it has NO residual odor
whatsoever immediately after! It is very tough and looks great. I hope
this helps! I'll cover more topics later. Julian Burke
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