Leaking when it rains? Where in the hell is this water coming from?

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gdizzle

gdizzle

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On my 66 dart 270, dealing with various body things. I always notice a nice wet spot on the pass. floor after a car wash or rain. It is not the heater. So finally today it is raining real good, so I get in the car and see the big wet puddle on the pass. side floor. There is water dripping from under the dash, just to the right side of the glove box. Water is under the edge and dripping straight down onto the carpet. What is the possible path for the water from outside to get under the dash edge? The metal lip of the dash. Glovebox is bone dry BTW.
Also I see a little water coming down the right kick panel, again in line with the dash edge. Any ideas?
 
Wiper pivot seals or the windshield. Both are pretty common.
 
Well, If you run water into the cowl vents (in front of the windshield) and it leaks into the car then it could be the vent duct risers inside the cowl??
If you run water around your windshield seal and you get water into the car then it could be the seal??

Besides the w/w seal there aren't too many other ways for water to get into the car in front??
Treblig
 
Wiper pivot or rust hole in the cowl floor area. run a garden hose in the cowl holes and see if it leaks inside.
 
Just don't soak your car doing the above and maybe put a drain pan down to catch it instead of getting your carpet more wet.
 
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Treblig said:
Well, If you run water into the cowl vents (in front of the windshield) and it leaks into the car then it could be the vent duct risers inside the cowl??
If you run water around your windshield seal and you get water into the car then it could be the seal??

Besides the w/w seal there aren't too many other ways for water to get into the car in front??
Treblig
Click to expand...

Forgot about that one. Yeah it could also be the cowl vent, if the cowl is packed with leaves and crap the water can find it's way into the cabin instead of out the drains. The drains plug up and then the water hangs around and finds all the seams. The cowls also rust out because of that, so sometimes its actually water coming through the cowl floor.

My Duster is a California car, original paint, couple of owners, relatively dry climate car and it STILL had a colossal amount of crap in the cowl. Fortunately for me it is pretty dry here, so, no rust. But everything was plugged up with leaves.

IMG_1090_zps4ba1d898.jpg
 
I can almost guarantee 100% that the bellflange where the heater bos bolts up to is rusted to some degree! Under the fender, right at the top where the cowl meets the firewall there is a small opening where the water that goes down the vent slats is supposed to drain out! One leaf or some debris clogging up the hole is all it takes to puddle the water around the bellflange and start it rusting! Fast forward many years and I think you'll find that area has at least some pin hole rust, and possibly worse! A VERY common problem with the early A bodies, almost every early Cuda I've taken apart has this problem on both sides!! There is no easy solution to fix it either, although some Solar Seal or really good solvent based caulk will slow down pinhole leaks for a while!! The only permanent solution is to cut apart the cowl and replace the inner piece!! Look for PabstXX's restoration thread, where he chronicles the procedure!!!
 
It is amazing the amount of crap that can get trapped in the cowl area. A much needed upgrade would be to open up the drain areas when the fenders are off.
 
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This may be the issue at hand as others have mentioned. Lube up the retaining rod screws (bottom) and remove them just to check in depth for the holes and replace the top sealing gasket to eliminate future issues.
 
To be honest, I have no idea how to get into the Cowl. I can barely even see what is going on from the top vent. Are we supposed to clean it out somehow?
As for the leak, I got under the dash and looked, the water is coming at the bottom corner of the windshield. Or something very near the windshield. So that is not the cowl, correct?
 
72bluNblu said:
Forgot about that one. Yeah it could also be the cowl vent, if the cowl is packed with leaves and crap the water can find it's way into the cabin instead of out the drains. The drains plug up and then the water hangs around and finds all the seams. The cowls also rust out because of that, so sometimes its actually water coming through the cowl floor.

My Duster is a California car, original paint, couple of owners, relatively dry climate car and it STILL had a colossal amount of crap in the cowl. Fortunately for me it is pretty dry here, so, no rust. But everything was plugged up with leaves.

View attachment 1715000477
Click to expand...
I unfortunately wasn't so lucky

IMG_1920.JPG
 
I was going to say the bottom corner of the windshield, on passenger side. If you look at the corner of the windshield, I bet you can see some condensation. You can put a new gasket on, with no guarantees.
The car I have outside, I have a nice car cover, with a plastic tarp on top of it. Keeps the car pretty dry, with no water getting to the windshield.
Dont worry, it never rains in California,and the winters almost over. :)
 
gdizzle said:
To be honest, I have no idea how to get into the Cowl. I can barely even see what is going on from the top vent. Are we supposed to clean it out somehow?
As for the leak, I got under the dash and looked, the water is coming at the bottom corner of the windshield. Or something very near the windshield. So that is not the cowl, correct?
Click to expand...


The first thing I did when I bought my Barracuda was to clean out the air duct area. There are drain holes/slots on either side of the cowl. You should be able to see the drains with the hood open in/around the hinge area. On my Barracuda it had one hole and a slot on each side. If it's been a while since they've been cleaned they might be completely plugged off. Just take some semi stiff wire and start working it into all the crud. Once I got all the crud broken up and free I used a compressor and blow gun to blow into the cowl vents to force all the gunk out of there. You can also vacuum all the loose stuff out of there. A word of caution!!!!....All that cud that falls out of the drain holes will conveniently fall into another bad place. There's an enclosed place on the inside of the fender near the bottom just below the drain holes. All the junk that happens to come out of the drain hole will fall into the small cubby inside the fender. That's why Mopars get rot at the rear bottom of the front fenders. It takes a while but the fenders also have a drain hole underneath. It's hard to find/see but once it's clogged (just like the cowl) it will continue to collect twigs/leaves, dirt, small rock, etc until the fender starts to rot. GOOD LUCK. See pics


Treblig
DSC05913.JPG
DSC05914.JPG
 
I always find that the wiper pivot seals are always rotted and water leaks in there. Those seal kits can be found for under $20.00 on the web.
 
Rain water comes from the sky.

Just wanted to clear that up.
 
gdizzle said:
To be honest, I have no idea how to get into the Cowl. I can barely even see what is going on from the top vent. Are we supposed to clean it out somehow?
As for the leak, I got under the dash and looked, the water is coming at the bottom corner of the windshield. Or something very near the windshield. So that is not the cowl, correct?
Click to expand...
A rust hole in bottom corner of windshield frame area will leak down the side as you described. this is beyond the cowl area and is independent of whether or not your glass is sealed. You would need to remove the trim to confirm.
 
Ok great ideas and tips. I finally located the slot hole on the side, sorta hidden under the torsion spring for hood. cant really get any tool into it. So I opened up the body plug (why I never thought of that before?) and put a small brush and began digging out several trays full of junk. Then was able to put in a water sprayer from my hose and spray towrads the drain hole and got it to run clean. Several trays worth of junk on the right side as well. Now I need to test it to see if water is still dripping into the car. Side note, upon inspection of the left side,which is where majority of water is coming, I did see that the antenna wire grommet was away from the panel, so possibly water is running down into the panel, hitting the antenna cable then snaking through the hole and under the dash and dripping. will also try to plug up the grommet better.

cowl - 1.jpg
 
Another question, I am trying to reinstall the antenna grommet. This thing cant go in all the way? no how. Am I putting it in from the inside or outside? help??
antennagrommet - 1.jpg
 
Ok so after the above mentioned clean out of the cowls etc... Had a big rain and still leaking the exact same way. So I suspect even though the cowl drains were clogged, the leak must be coming from the corner of the windshield. So I assume I have to remove the windshield in order to fix? Any thoughts? Lets say I replace the windshield, when they remove the glass is it possible for me to seal the potential rust hole that might be in that corner? Is there anyway to visually see the rust hole from under the dash? I do have one of those small snake cameras
 
Mine leaked after the new windshield was installed. There was no rust holes because I just had it all apart and can confirm that. On recommendation of a friend in the auto glass business I used a rope caulk called Dum-dum strip. I picked it up at a local body shop supply place. It worked great so far.

Cley
 
There is seam sealer over the joint where the round sheet metal portion of the cowl vent protrudes up into the cowl area. I had a car where the factory seam sealer dried up and flaked off, leaving seams that weren't water proof. It's worth a look. as well the rust holes shown in the picture above. Sealing the windshield won't fix those.
 
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