Here’s the situation: the Ford Transit has several mounting points (M8 threaded holes) to install roof rack and accessories to the roof. Each mounting points is a M8 threaded hole, with a painted rubber plug on top of it to prevent water infiltration. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for the threaded holes to develop slow leak over time. We know, it shouldn’t be like that. But no vans are perfect; the Transit, Sprinter and ProMaster each have their own little problems… So instead of getting mad about it, we’d rather take a few minutes to permanently fix the problem and keep our energy and a positive attitude for the next steps of our van conversion 🙂 Let’s do it!
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1. About Slow Leaks
Slow leaks are evil and have the potential of creating quite a lot of damage. Indeed, a slow leak can go on for a long time (days, weeks, or months) without being noticed. During that time, moisture is trapped (e.g. in insulation or in the ceiling cavities) and mold can develop.
2. Leak Causes & How To Fix
2.1. Roof Plugs
The Ford Transit has plugs at each of the mounting points for roof rack and accessories, as well as pass through holes to run electrical wires (or such):
The paint over the plug may crack over time and allow slow leaks:
On our 2016 Transit, after 6 months of full time vanlife, we noticed dripping water coming out of the wall over the sliding door; because our ceiling is insulated and finished, we could not locate the exact location of the leak. But we assumed it came from one of the threaded hole, so we climbed on the roof and we found that the paint was slightly cracked around the plugs (see previous picture).
It is worth mentioning that not everyone is having water leak issue on their Transit. Many people didn’t do anything about it and are doing just fine. You may, or may not encounter this. That being said, the fix is so easy that we’ll personally do it on our new 2021 Transit just for our peace of mind.
The solution to prevent the roof plugs from leaking is pretty simple: seal the plugs with sealant! Because you, or the next owner, might eventually need to remove the plugs, we’d recommend using a non-permanent sealant, such as Dicor Lap Sealant (see on Amazon).
We were in Montana when we noticed the leak, it was winter, and we had to solve the issue quickly on-the-spot. Silicone II is all we could find locally at the hardware store, so we went ahead and proceeded to seal the plugs. No issues since then!
2.2. Roof Panel Joints
The Ford Transit roof is made of several sheet metal panels, joined and sealed together:
Unfortunately, at some spots, the factory sealant may be inappropriately applied and allow slow leaks:
A few weeks after getting our 2021 Transit, we noticed a tiny spot of water on the cargo floor:
We climbed on the roof and we located where the sealant wasn’t properly applied (see “Gap In Sealant” in picture above). To prevent any leak in the future, we decided to seal all the panel joints on the roof (marked with a red line in the picture above) as follows:
Material:
- Mineral Spirits
- Soapy Water
- Sikaflex-221 (or another sealant of your choice)
- Caulking Gun
- Shop Towels (or a lint free cloth)
- Nitrile Gloves (we pre-cut a bunch of fingers, see step 3)
Remember to keep soapy water nearby at all time, this stuff is pretty sticky!
1. Clean the surfaces to be sealed (we used mineral spirits, soapy water is probably fine though):
2. Apply sealant (we used Sikaflex-221, same sealant as for the roof rack install):
3. To smooth out the seam, wet your finger in soapy water and run along the sealant:
4. Final result (with roof plugs removed for the roof rack installation). Looking good and clean!
Food for thought
Because we insulated our van using Thinsulate (faroutride.com/thinsulate), water from the slow leak found its way down; we were alerted of the leak shortly and we could fix the issue at the source. If we had use foam board or spray foam (or whatever), water would probably have been trapped and accumulate somewhere (remember some of the threaded holes are hidden within frames) and rust over time or drain all at once when driving and make a huge mess. Also, as opposed to denim or fiberglass insulation, Thinsulate is hydrophobic and don’t retain moisture; it will dry soon enough. We think that’s another good reason right there to choose Thinsulate for insulation…
thanks guys, I’ve a 2015 mk8 transit, we have water leaking down the inner B pillar into 1 of the large hole areas, stopping us build further with insulation etc.
so getting the ladders out when the rain stops.
thanks for your advice.
Hey guys. Just sharing that I believe the Pass Through Holes are 0.75 inch in diameter. Hope this helps some folks.
R/Mike
Thanks!
hi folks
your site is great and we are excited to start our build within the next year or so. Quick question, will you by chance be doing a “build-series” video on you new build? Would be great for sure and something I’d gladly pay. I have purchased all the help tools/downloads from your site and slowly digging into everything. The video you did on the “swivel seat’ was prefect and would love a similar one on the wiring, perhaps within a few videos given the scope on wiring being so large.
Thanks again
Greg
Hi Greg, I just answered your email! 🙂
Have you experienced any water leaks from the side panels? Sprinter vans are known to have this problem, and some Transit owners report the same problem. Would lining the inside top edge of the side panels do the trick?
To our kwowledge our side panels don’t leak. It’s a bit hard to check on the old van (with the walls), but we’ll monitor this on the new van during the upcoming rain season!
Thanks. I appreciate this a lot – perfect timing. My Transit was supposed to be here first week of April, then got pushed back 3x to July, now possibly this coming week.
I want to design my own roof rack, do you know where I can find the schematics/dimensions for the roof rack attachment points?
We do have a schematic here: https://faroutride.com/roof-rack/#transit-install
But the shown dimensions might not be precise enough to design a rack though… I’d wait until you get your van (to account for the roof curvature and all).
Just found loads of water in my transit today which I’m currently converting and filming for my youtube channel “Mispronounced Adventures”, I guessed this was issue, went up on the roof. turned out it was the same. thanks for the article on it!