where's the water coming from?

VortecJeep

VortecJeep

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Joined
Aug 24, 2005
Location
Concord, NC
1996 ZJ: Passenger side front floorboard was soaked. My ZJ has smelled bad for awhile, last Friday I found the source: I pulled the rubber floor mat out of the passenger side front and the carpet is soaked and moldy. It actually ended up giving me an upper respiratory infection after I disturbed the mold. Today I put on a mask, gloves, glasses, and cut the carpet out of the front passenger side because it is ruined. I dried up the metal floorpan and then rubbed it down with clorox to kill any mold.

Where is this water coming from? It must have been there for at least a couple months because 2 months ago my wife had to drive it a couple days and our 4 year old ended up with a sinus infection.
 
Is it just water or is it anti-freeze/water?

Not sure about ZJ's heater core location, but I've had heater cores leak onto the passenger floorboard on chevy trucks. Mine kinda smelled like maple syrup.

If it is water only, I've also had a windshield seal leak and didn't know it right away. The water ran down the inside of the firewall and under the carpet. Ended up rusting the floorboards & ruining the carpet. Had a company come out and try 3 times to reseal it unsuccesfully, so I just used black RTV and it stopped.
 
Tetanus said:
Is it just water or is it anti-freeze/water?
Not sure about ZJ's heater core location, but I've had heater cores leak onto the passenger floorboard on chevy trucks. Mine kinda smelled like maple syrup.
If it is water only, I've also had a windshield seal leak and didn't know it right away. The water ran down the inside of the firewall and under the carpet. Ended up rusting the floorboards & ruining the carpet.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking one of these options too.You notice any fog on the inside of your windshield? Being that it has been summer time in NC, I doubt you used your heat much, so crank that on and see if you have any heat. Another easy was to test it is, get the rig up to operating temp, and both hoses to the heater core should be almost too hot to touch.

If it's the windshield, rb some soap around the seal, and spray it down...then look if you can see any obvious suds on the inside.
 
had the exact same problem with my families ZJ. Brought it to multiple mechanics tried sealing etc never could keep it totally dry. I'd check the heater core and AC.
 
Sounds like what I found in my XJ, except I caught it way before you did. I spotted a pool of water on my pass. side floormat. When I popped the hood, I located the AC drain coming out of the firewall and found mudwasps had built a nest in it plugging it up. I poked it out, water came gushing out, and all was good. :beer:
 
Thanks for the help.
Both heater hoses are hot.
No smell of anti-freeze.
I could not locate a drain coming out of the firewall. I found this on the web: http://www.aircondition.com/tech/questions/4/
So I drilled a hole and rammed a coat hanger thru it. It felt like there was definitely a blockage. Then sealed the hole with some RTV. We'll see what happens.
 
Update: Well, I'm back to getting water in the floorboard, probably time to ram a coat hanger thru it again.
I also drilled holes in the floorboard so the water can drain out of the floor board.
 
If your ZJ has a sunroof it could be that the sunroof drain tubes are pluged. I had this problem in a ZJ I used to have.
 
its a factory defect on these. looked into it several times bc my mom in laws jeep did the same thing. its coming from the a/c and the way we corrected it was to remove the dash and re-route the drain line..... for some reason it drains on the passenger side of the firewall.
 
jweezyferg said:
its a factory defect on these. looked into it several times bc my mom in laws jeep did the same thing. its coming from the a/c and the way we corrected it was to remove the dash and re-route the drain line..... for some reason it drains on the passenger side of the firewall.
Click to expand...
You might say I rerouted the drain by drilling holes in the floorboard!:rolleyes:
 
RenegadeT said:
Sounds like what I found in my XJ, except I caught it way before you did. I spotted a pool of water on my pass. side floormat. When I popped the hood, I located the AC drain coming out of the firewall and found mudwasps had built a nest in it plugging it up. I poked it out, water came gushing out, and all was good. :beer:
Click to expand...


x2 My wifes xj started leaking the other day when we were running the AC pretty heavy. the drain was plugged with gunk
 
Typically, you can clean out the drain tube, then put a 90* elbow on it to keep the water from coming out the tube and draining right back into the vehicle.
 
drain tube, happened on mine too
 
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