Harmony Symphony Symbol Mk1/2 Sliding Door

Guys,

I've been aware for a while that all wasn't well with our Harmony sliding door, and yesterday I finally got around to taking it apart for a look.

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Evidence of water ingress on inside trim panel.

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Corresponding area of water damage on door body, aligned with centre of sliding window after cleaning-up - it was a right mess here.

Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon?

Before repairing I want to establish the path the water is taking. Clearly the bottom runner/channel of the sliding window acts to retain a pool of water, that is until it drains through the slots on leading and trailing ends. So I take it as fact that when it rains the bottom of the channel will be wet both inside and out, but this water should be contained. However, I feel the integrity of the channel is potentially being compromised by a self-tapping screw which points upwards into the channel, the purpose of which is to stop the rearmost window section from opening. By the way, this screw was missing from the drivers side sliding window, and we've seen no ingress there. AS have applied copious amounts of black sealant (Sikaflex 221?) around the window frame, but my suspicion is that this has still allowed some seepage of water from the screw, perhaps as it has degraded over time. So I need to go to the next step and clean up the area to confirm my theory.

Anyway, for now, if anyone else has been in here and found the source of the water then I'd be pleased to hear from them.

Also the black 'carpet' stuck to the plywood window surround is, not surprisingly, in poor shape. Does anyone know from where this may be sourced?

Bartfarst

Not the same base vehicle, but we had similar on the Trooper - the sllding windows on the T5 are notorious for leaking, and ours wasn't fixable, so we had to have it cut out and an aftermarket window put in instead.

On ours, the fixing of the wooden frame by A/S was poor, and we had to re-fix the wooden mounting blocks because they seemed to have been glued in with an inappropriate adhesive (it looked like hot melt wood glue to me).

The carpet should be quite easy to get from any of the camper van conversion companies (e.g. Clearcut, Just Kampers, etc), sold as carpet lining material - it really is quite stretchy, which is good for that sort of work. We had trouble matching the yukky brown in the Trooper, but you shouldn't have any trouble with black!

Thanks Roopert!

I have to say that I too am not impressed by AS's build quality in the out-of-site areas. It seems to me that they've relied upon adhesive and woodscrews, then hidden all the mess behind the ubiquitous black plastic external cover pieces which, themselves, are stuck to the outside of the van. With time I suspect that these are now also letting water in as the sealant degrades.

Thanks again,

Bart

Guys,

An update on the situation.

As suspected the culprit was the self-tapping screw which pokes upwards through the lower channel of the window frame, the purpose of which is to stop the rearmost fixed window panel from sliding forward. See the photo below:

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There he is, poking upwards amidst more than two decades of wet gunge. In fact, looking from above I was able to determine that the screw was actually loose in its hole - it moved as I manipulated the fixed window - thus letting water through to the rear of a load of sealant which AS had applied but which, over time, had degraded and let the water into the door liner.

To repair the problem I cut away all the failed sealant from beneath the window and withdrew the screw. I then drove in a tapered plastic dowel from above (ground down tip of a chopstick!) and resealed the whole area beneath the area with Sikaflex 512. I then re-made a new plywood window surround and also took the opportunity to both improve noise/thermal insulation inside the door, close-off the gaps around the sliding door seal and fit central locking to the sliding door, all of which may form the content of another posting if anyone is interested.

For now though folks, I'd recommend all with similar vans to check for leakage and the security of that bloomin' little screw. Further I'd also recommend that the presence of the screws be checked as they had been omitted from my offside window thus allowing the unlocked 'fixed' pane to be slit forward from the outside: a real security issue.

Bartfarst