I've been told that tailgate leaks on this vintage car and model are not
just common but chronic. I discovered this leak when the gate's interior
finish panel rotted out around the bottom. Volvo does not make
replacement panel's for this car anymore and I could not find one
locally in Seattle that wasn't water damaged. I also couldn't find one
online without water damage, including two Volvo specific sites in
Arizona where one would imagine water damage wouldn't be an issue. I'm
thinking design flaw. Anyway, I bought one locally with water damage
that will have to suffice but I'm concerned about further water leakage
into the interior of the tailgate destroying this one, too. The window
seal leaked for sure and I had it removed and reseated. Continued
leakage turned out to be in from the aging seals for the license plate
lights, the latch handle and the key lock cylinder. I will replace these
soon and this should stop all or most of the inflow...for now. The
problem is when, unbeknownst to me, leaks form again (Actually, there is
no seal provision where the handle's thumb latch passes through the
gate's exterior wall, but this is under the cover of the top of the
handle...not reliable leak prevention). While the drain holes at the
bottom inside of the gate are situated to take care of any water that
does get into the door's interior, the design flaw seems to be that they
are situated too high to prevent a small well forming above the pinch
welds at bottom of the tailgate which, for a car parked on an incline
like mine must be, even unobstructed drain holes will not vacate. The
water sits in the well until the gate is opened when most of it quickly
flows past the drain holes down onto the fiberboard of the finish panel.
Factory sealing at the pinch weld is a thin coating of stuff that has an
orangish color. Covering this orange coating seems to be the remainder
of a black caulking that has eroded badly from most of the seam. I'm
thinking of cleaning the area at the pinch weld off and building up an
counter-inclined floor of caulking whose bottom terminates slightly
above the bottom of the drain holes thus forcing water drainage even for
a car parked on an incline. Any problems with this solution that I have
not anticipated? Any recommendations for the correct caulking? Any other
ideas of how to cure this model's chronic tailgate leakage?