Our 2003 Puck 120GT developed a water leak above the rear window at the end of last summer. I removed the high level brake light assembly but couldn’t find any obvious signs of water ingress. I intend to reseal with Sikaflex 512 as advised by others on the forum in previous posts. As for the awning rail I have managed to remove all 3 rail assemblies complete with the custom made rubber gasket which all seem to be in good condition. I have cleaned away the light grey mastic which was unbelievably sticky and hard to remove. If anyone out there has done a successful resealing job on their rails I am at the point where I really need your advice. My specific questions are
1. What sealant or mastic strip should I use for the best outcome?
2. The black rubber gasket seems very supple still so can I reuse it? As it is custom made to fit the inside of the aluminium rail I’m assuming it’s won’t be simple to source a replacement.
Any advice would be much appreciated as this is a job I definitely only want to do once.
Many thanks
Roy

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Hopefully someone will come along who has done the same task, you would be best using dedicated caravan mastic strip for your awning rail. Werbung: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Caravan-Motor...mzQAAOSwTSlcAmt-

Yes, we did ours 4 years ago and this is what we did..............
If you click on the below you should go direct to Amazon and this is what we purchased. It is W4 Mastic Sealing Strip, White, in the 45mm width. It comes in other colours and widths. Our caravan engineer warned us not to buy the narrower strip as lining it up is so difficult. We purchased the 45mm wide and just sliced the excess off after with a plastic knife. You could use an old credit card to do this.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/W4-Wide-Mastic-...&sr=1-1-catcorr
You will also need a load of 50mm panel pins or something similar. You could use a pin with a small head but it will need to go through the hole in the rail. Put a pin in each hole as you undo the screws holding the awning rail to the van, so you have the mark for the right holes to correspond (we found other holes under the rail!!). We filled in all the ‘spare’ holes with a bit of the W4 tape or you could use Sikaflex to fill holes. Do not remove panel pins until you are actually screwing the screws back to hold the rail at the end.
After removing the awning rail we cleaned off all the old black mastic gunge with white spirit and also used the spirit to clean the side of the van. Be careful not to knock out the panel pins. Make sure you wash and dry the van and rail before refitting. Also be careful when cleaning the rail, if it is curved, that you do not bend it another way.
Now putting the rail back on the van!! We found it easier to have 3 people to put back the rail......it’s not heavy, but you need to have it balanced as it will stick as soon as it touches the mastic strip. (Do a dry run before putting the mastic strip on the side of the van, so you know what each person will do. It is also worth marking the centre panel pin with the hole that will line up on the rail)
We attached the mastic strip to the side of the van (sticky side to van. Leave the wax paper on the outer side until ready to fit rail) and tried to keep the panel pins central in the strip. As you put the strip along, at each panel pin, let it pierce the strip. You are now left with the mastic strip on the van and the panel pins pierced through it. Now remove the wax paper backing but not the panel pins.
Now you need to line up the right panel pins with the holes in the awning rail without touching the strip or van!!. Once you are happy you have the right holes lined with the right panel pins, offer it up and it will stick immediately. We made sure the rail was pressed on all the way along and starting from the center out we removed one panel pin at a time and put back the screws. We even used a little bit of the W4 mastic strip round each screw, to make sure they were watertight. Once every screw has been put back we used a plastic knife to cut off all the excess mastic tape.
We did this 4 years ago and we have had no leak since. It also looks so much nicer than the black goo!!.
Please PM us if you need any further clarification.
Regards Chris

Thank you to both Poptop320 and campnsnooze for your quick replies.

Thank you so much for your really detailed reply which is much appreciated.
Next question is how did you manage to keep the panel pins central in each hole so they're not just wobbling around at an angle?
Also you haven't mentioned the rubber gasket - did yours have one? Attached photos for illustration - apologies they were taken before I've done a proper clean up
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Thanks
Roy

Hi Roy. To be honest I don't remember if the panel pins wobbled around, you could always use a bit of the W4 mastic tape pushed into the holes which would reduce the size and stop the wobble. Bits of the mastic can be formed like putty.
With ref to the gasket...we didn't have one behind ours as we had what looked like string behind ours...this, we did away with. I would think yours looks more substantial, so would need to be kept....is it in good condition? I forgot to say, we replaced some of the screws holding the awning rail with some screws that were 2-3mmm longer as we felt some of the holes were somewhat deeper and wanted the rail to fix tightly to stop any water ingress.
Regards Chris

Many thanks Chris
With the current situation we won't be able to have a third person 2 metres apart from us as the van is not much longer than that! I think this job will have to be put on hold until things change. We did manage to get the Puck into our garage, bit of a limbo dance as both ends of the roof were too high for the garage door. We had to drop down the front, pull it in a little way and then wind up the front to drop the back to get it all the way in with millimetres to spare. At least it's in the dry for when we eventually get some rain. I'll keep you posted on progress whenever I am able to restart this job. Thanks again
Roy

Did you manage to achieve this. The rubber is a gasket and is an Eriba one, it sounds as if the white one referred to is a general sealant one for caravans whereas the rubber version is Eriba specific.