Last Updated: 08/21/2025 @ 06:38 am
Credit: 95maxrider
Hi everyone,
A little while ago while redoing some stuff for my stereo I noticed a large amount of water in the area behind the passenger seat on the floor. This is what tipped me off:
Then this…
And finally, this is what drained out of the carpet over night:
I know what you’re thinking: your sunroof drains are clogged! Except I don’t have a sunroof in my car!
I knew that my door rubber on the PS front door had some rips in it, so I picked up some good ones at the junkyard and installed them.
Old:
The new one for the body side has a little crease in it, but I don’t think it’s anything to worry about:
And yet, after all that, I just found the same area soaking wet again. I’m completely stumped as to what’s happening here, and how water is getting into that area. I should mention that I park my car in my driveway, which is uphill, so if water gets in the front of the car, it could make its way to the rear without issue. With that said, I saw no indication that anything in front of that area was wet.
Time for an update, I need some more help!
It turns out that the water behind the passenger seat was actually coming from the front of the car, not the rear. That’s due to my driveway being on an incline. I located a water leak somewhere around the base of the A pillar on the PS. I removed the A pillar cover, and as far as I can tell, the water isn’t coming from anywhere around the windshield. I can only see it coming out from below, in this corner:
So I decided to remove the PS fender to see if there were any visible cracks on the firewall. Unfortunately, taking the fender off did little to help me see where the leak is coming from.
Here are some closeups:
There appears to be a drain hole beneath that large oval hole:
I was able to clear out some debris by sticking my vacuum into the large oval hole, and I think some of it was semi-clogging the drain. I took the car back outside and got the hose ready:
Sure enough, the water mostly drained out of the little drain under the large oval:
This is the view inside the oval hole:
The chamber behind that wall is where the intake for the HVAC is located. That intake sits inside a hole surrounded by metal about 2″ high, preventing water from going into the HVAC. Here’s a view from the DS:
With my hose putting out a lot of water, no water went into the HVAC. But it did come right into the car again! So this seems to point to the problem being somewhere around the HVAC intake on the firewall, and not higher up around the windshield. The only problem is that I can’t see a way to access the area where the leak is occurring, none of the metal around the firewall is removable! The only thing I can think to do now is to remove the dash and/or the heater core. Can anyone think of any other solutions here? Am I overlooking something real simple and stupid? Here’s a look at the heater core:
So Schmellyfart is taking apart a car to go to the junkyard, and was nice enough to snap some pics of what the inside of a 4th gen car looks like with the dash and heater core removed. These pictures are very helpful, and if you look close, you can see an area that is rusting, likely around where mine is doing the same:
Ok, so I’ve pulled the dash, and I’m looking at the heater core and blower motor assembly:
I’m really hoping I can remove the blower motor (the white thing on the right) without removing the whole heater core (black part on the left). I’m really not trying to drain all my coolant and my AC lines. Does anyone know if it can be done? Without removing the blower motor, I can’t get to any of the seams on the firewall. So close, but so far!
I would also like to remove the PS air bag, as I don’t have one on the DS, which disables the PS one, so I might as well get rid of it. Except it seems to be “one piece” with the outer cover:
removed the crash bar, but the blower motor still doesn’t have quite enough room to come out.
Well I got the blower motor out without removing the AC evaporator in the black box to its left! I was under the impression that the black box housed both AC and heater stuff, but upon looking at the lines from the engine bay, it became clear that the black box only held AC stuff. The main blower assembly in the center is what houses the heater stuff I guess. I do have the ability to recharge the AC, but it’s not something I’m very good at, and I didn’t feel great about venting my whole system to the atmosphere. So I hoped and prayed that I would find a quick and simple way to get out the blower by itself. I went back into the garage this morning pretty worried about what the day had in store. I had the idea that I might want to trim off some plastic from the black box to give me enough room to slide out the blower. I was in there looking at it, and noticed that one of the sides for the black AC box was pretty flimsy. With almost no effort, I was able to snap off a good piece of it. I then followed up with my snips, and with that little bit of plastic out of the way, I could get the blower out! It was a joyous moment to be sure. Here’s what I did:
That little bit of plastic was all that was keeping me from getting the blower out!
As this out of focus picture shows, there was a good amount of debris in the evaporator housing:
So I spent some time with different picks and my shop vac and cleaned it all out:
The blower was actually very clean:
So I was then left with this:
But there was still the factory insulation in the way. I ended up just cutting off a piece so I could get easy access to where I thought the leak was (I’ll reinstall properly when I’m all done). And with that, I was FINALLY able to see the source of my water leak:
It’s not in the exact same spot as the pics from schmellyfart, but it’s not far, maybe 2″ away. It’s clear that this area has a few body panels coming together, and it’s also right next to the drain for the cowl, so being sealed properly is crucial. If you have a water leak in a 4th gen, I wouldn’t be surprised to find it’s in this area! You can see three water trails coming down from that area, so I’m very confident this was my problem.
I spent quite a bit of time with different wire wheels, both on my big gun and little ones on my dremel, trying to peel back the old seam sealer so I could get a better look at exactly where the water is coming in.
It doesn’t really come through in the picture, but the horizontal area just right of center is actually completely open now. I had to scrape the old seam sealer out of it with a screwdriver, because I didn’t want any of that old cracked stuff getting in the way of my fresh seam sealer. Now I’ll be able to completely refill the gap with new sealer. Access into this area was pretty awkward, and my back was aching after a few hours in there, but I think I’m happy with how clean I was able to get it. When I finally couldn’t get it any cleaner, it was time to prep the surface for the seam sealer:
This stuff is SUPER strong, and has tons of warnings all over it. I go full-hazmat when I use this stuff, but professional painters swear by it, so I grit my teeth and bear it. I was considering applying the seam sealer today, but then I thought about it more and realized I would feel much better about it if I bought a new tube of it. My current tube is a few years old, and since I couldn’t get a firm answer on its shelf life, I decided I would rather spend another $20 on new sealer than to have my current sealer fail because it was too old and didn’t adhere properly. It should be here on Tuesday, so I’ll continue after that. But for now I’m feeling pretty damn good that I was able to get the blower out by itself without ruining anything!
I’m left with this to look at, and ponder how many things I’m going to forget to reinstall, or reinstall in the wrong order. I’m not out of the woods yet!
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