Thread: Harvest rainwater for waterinjection?

I had this slightly crazy idea. I have this water injection system on my NX, and have to fill it up from time to time. I got the idea to recirculate rainwater seeping into the trunk (via rear wiper hole), into a coffee filter, and then into the water tank. Rain water is basically distilled water, and should be very pure (depends on location, smog etc.)

Am I crazy, or is this a good idea? Heres a rough sketch to get it visualized:


Am I missing something?

Haha sounds cool. Would overflow be an issue?

Would that be considered lowering your carbon footprint...I think so!

Well, this certainly is one of the most interesting threads on here in awhile. I hope it works out for you if you go thru with it!

Mini mobile rain barrel. Love it!

How much water actually seeps into that hole? If I had water leaking into the trunk, I'd be wanting to seal that up as it's only going to lead to rust over time.

Now, if there were some purpose-designed collection port for the water, that would be different. I'm thinking maybe the base of the windshield where the wipers don't reach?

Filter is definitely a good idea, you don't know what's going to splash up on your car from the road. @1fastser mentioned overflow being an issue, I'm assuming this was regarding the collection container. An opening towards the top with a tube running to under the car for runoff (runoff runoff?) would resolve that. You could also get clever with fluid level sensors and a windshield washer pump to automatically refill your water injection system.

Looks like I'm doing this

The hole I'm talking about is pretty big: http://i.imgur.com/rit8Fng.jpg It used to house the wiper motor, it's about 1.25 inch in diameter

Water runoff for overflow would be required, and pretty easy to implement.

Inectors have an 80micron filter build into them, but pre-filtering is very required. I'm thinking metal mesh->coffee filter -> 80micron injector filter.

I'll snap some pics this weekend once I get started.

Do it, Carlos!!!!!

Pretty crafty Idea....if you put a gauge on it to se when its full you can cap/plug it off as needed when full

Nah, just build in overflow protection like mentioned above. You never have to mess with it at all then.



OK, I was assuming the wiper was still there and you just had extra water seeping in. Do you ever lift that hatch? You would need to be sure that this didn't dislodge anything you are building there.

I'd also worry slightly about someone coming along and tossing trash or other objects into such a large hole. Kids, morons, democrats, etc. That can be tempting to such folks. Maybe you can fit a black funnel to that opening to restrict the size a bit, with a metal mesh on top painted to match the exterior color. Fixes up your hole a bit, and will help keep some extra debris out. Worst case you don't collect water for a bit.

Seems to me cleaning the filters and checking water levels would be more work than just topping it off with distilled water every now and again. Plus potential for mess if the filter breaks

Brent