Leaky Lights

I love Hondas. Anyone who knows me, knows that I have an undying loyalty to Honda Motor Company. I think they build fantastic cars and I am proud to own 3 of them (currently). Throughout the history of their company, Honda have built a reputation of quality and reliability. They have built what some consider to be the best front-engine, front-wheel drive vehicle EVER. The Integra Type R, of course. Well, this isn't about the Integra - it's about the Integra's successor, the RSX.

While Honda can engineer a remarkable engine with a specific output of 120 HP per litre (in the S2000), they can also fall flat on their faces when it comes to PRACTICAL things such as tail lights. The integra hatchback was notorious for leaking water into the trunk through the tail lights and it appears the RSX suffers from the same design flaw. My girlfriend, Jess, owns an RSX and was recently faced with this problem.

The issue is in the tail light gasket. The gaskets are made out of a foam material that is supposed to provide a seal between the bulb socket cut outs in the trunk and the tail lights themselves. These gaskets sucked in the integra and they suck in the RSX too. In Jess' car it got so bad that I would have to soak up the water out of her trunk after each rain storm. We recently had some beautiful spring weather, so I decided to try to do something about it.

First, I removed the spare tire, jack, subwoofer and paneling from the trunk and performed some tests. I ran water down the drainage channels on hatch and then looked inside to verify that the car was indeed leaking at the tail lights. Once that was confirmed, it was time to get down to business. In order to remove the tail lights, you have to first remove the bumper cover. This is actually pretty easy. After removing 6 screws and 2 clips the bumper pops right off. Twelve more nuts and you've got the tail lights off.

Next, I applied some silicone aquarium sealant around each one of the cut-outs in the trunk. I am hoping that the silicone will form an initial barrier and the water will be forced to flow around, not even reaching the foam gasket. Really, Honda should have designed channels to divert the majority of the water AWAY from the tail lights instead of dumping it RIGHT ON TOP of them. This is just such an idiotic design. Anyway, once I was finished applying the silicone I put the tail lights back on and finally the bumper. We'll see how it turns out!

PS - Sorry for the crappy iPhone pictures and awesome photoshop work.



Start by removing the bumper.


Next the tail lights. You can see the cut-outs for the bulb sockets.


This is how the water gets in.


Here are the black foam gaskets that are pretty much worthless.


Hopefully this silicone will do the trick!

Big Things in the WORKS

Just so you know, we haven't given up on our 2k10 Blog Initiative. We've just been busy with life.

Never fear, there are many things in the works!

Things on the horizon:

• Aaron serves on a jury.


• Aaron re-paints his bedroom.


• Brad cooks mac & cheese.


• Brad cooks fish & chips.


• Chris re-installs his Ducati 748 engine.


• Chris builds new shelving.


• Geoff shops for a house.


• Geoff continues work on the Civic.


• Sander crashes his race car.


• Sander fixes his wrecked race car.

NBD.