Seeing as the description says “If it leaks it’s in here” I’m putting this in here!

Whilst removing the interior trim from my P38 to clean it today I found that the drivers side carpet is wet... very wet!

I’m struggling to find the source of the leak though.

This is the only place I can find any sign of it being wet near the door. Under the wiring harness towards the front and rear of the car from that point is bone dry.

The wetness seems to be coming from the transmission tunnel side but I could be wrong. When squeezing it and licking my finger tips the water is fresh, it’s not coolant so that rules out heater matrix o-rings.

I removed the trim on the top of the windscreen and both roof rails that run from front to back, there’s no marks at the top of the body and when soaking it with a hose there’s no water coming in. The pollen filter is dry and when looking under the flap at the blower motor it’s dry as well. When soaking the scuttle panel with the house the pollen filter housing and the bulkhead up behind the pedals stays dry as well.

I dropped the headlining and took the sunroof drain tube off, it’s bone dry and isn’t blocked either.

The air conditioning hasn’t yet been charged so it can’t be condensate either.

The car hasn’t been used in the last few weeks but we’ve had a couple of days of very heavy rain so I can only guess that it’s rain water that’s gotten into the cabin somewhere but I can’t figure out how!

Has anybody got any suggestions where I could look next? I’ve done so much work to this car recently that this has really wound me up today as I was hoping it was going to be an easy fix!

David.

Pollen filter covers more than likely..

I spent a good while looking for a leak in mine water would fill up the cavity near the loom, turned out the Pollen filter covers were leaking, they had warped in the middle..

Dry the water out the cavity and pour coloured water around the covers.

If you pull the covers off you might see water inside!

I pulled the drivers side one but didn’t see much in there, it was bone dry. Will have another look tomorrow I think. It’s not rained for a few days up here and has been 20+ degrees so everything is bone dry under there.

I’ll give everything a good soaking with the hose tomorrow and see if I can see any water anywhere.

When you say the pollen filter covers, do you mean the oval cover with a cross point screw at either end or the bottom half of it?

Another thought...

I put a new plenum foam on my P38 a while back. I wonder if the drains are blocked and in the heavy downpour we had at the start of the week if it’s just overwhelmed the scuttle and come in through the heater vents.

Yes the covers.

Water can also wick down the screws!

Aircon drains are another!

Another place the water gets in is the holes wherE the lower outer windshield trim is connected. There are about 12 holes and after time the clips on the strip break off causing the trim to separate from windshield and water to ingress into the holes and down onto the carpet.
Difficulty with investigating this as a root cause is that when you pull the trim off many of the clips are brittle and break leaving you with open holes.
I bought a new strip for my vehicle and it came with about 4 clips less than were required so if you go this way try and save some.
An alternative to buying a new strip would be to run a bead of clear silicone along where the strip meets the glass.

Thank you.

Another thing to have a look at. I had that trim off recently to replace the foam under the scuttle panel so I guess it’s possible. I think I’ll go and get a tub of clear silicone in the morning and remove things and start sealing them up.

Do the cheapest first. Run a bead of silicone along glass and strip. If you removed scuttle panel and the leaks followed I would wager that water is coming from either the holes I mentioned or else the pollen filter lid.
A problem causing water to gather under the scuttle panel is if the heated windshield wiring was not reconnected properly to the panel, water will gather behind the drooping wires and because it’s not flowing will look for an egress....
While you are at it, you should drill two holes in both of the channels along the floors as shown in your photo. This will allow any future unseen leaks to drain instead of pooling around wires. I did this to both my P38s, as well as in the floor of the spare wheel compartment, and both are dry with no corrosion. After drilling holes I primed them.

Water leak found :-D

When I got the car there wasn’t a plenum foam on it so the scuttle was full of crap. I took all the trim off it and replaced it around 12 months ago and hoovered out what I can see but didn’t see the drains underneath the pollen filter housing.

Today I took the pollen filter housings completely out and found the drain on each side of the scuttle choked with leaves and pine needles from the trees. I scraped them out, vacuumed the scuttle panel, and refitted everything whilst sealing it all with a thin bead of silicone.

We had a couple of days or torrential rain last week so I’ve got a feeling the scuttle drains became overwhelmed as they were choked and it ran in through the drivers side pollen filter housing.

The car is now back in the workshop with the dehumidifier in it drying it out. It can sit there for 24hrs until it goes for the tracking and an air con recharge and then it can go back in for the rest of the week so hopefully it’ll dry out quite nicely and I can them get on and finish cleaning it.

David.

Although the scuttle panel itself was clean, this is the crap that I scraped out from under the pollen filter housings.

You can see the drain now with all the crap that came out of it to the left of the image.

Anyway, I removed all the crap, got the hoover out and gave everything a proper clean up.

And refitted everything with silicon around it to give it all as good a chance as it can have.

The shifting spanner was handy as the rubber kept bouncing out and getting in the silicon.

Amazingly, this car is a 2002 and all of the fixings down there were corroded and horrible, I had to cut slots in the head of the screws in the pollen filter housings to get them out as the heads were almost non existent. On my 1995 breaker which has had no scuttle panel on it and no bonnet on it and has been in bits since 2012 the screws were barely rusty and in perfect condition so I’ve refitted them into my 2002 car.

Looks like LR’s quality of nuts and bolts went downhill massively as the later cars came out.

David.

Bugger!

I noticed my Range Rover was very fogged up the other night. I had a look at the underside of the drivers carpet and it’s soaking wet again. Going to need to have another look at this and see what is going on.

David.

dhallworth wrote:

Bugger!

I noticed my Range Rover was very fogged up the other night. I had a look at the underside of the drivers carpet and it’s soaking wet again. Going to need to have another look at this and see what is going on.

David.

Mine did that --- unfortunately you cracked the heater matrix were screw holds pipes ---- don't panic you don't have to strip dash ---- you can cut support and slip matrix out and simply gaffer duct back together again after if you want pics pm me Happy Christmas mate

Thankfully, when squeezing the carpet and getting your hands wet then licking the tip of your finger, it’s fresh water on the carpet, not coolant.

I’ve just done the heater matrix on my other P38 last weekend, I really don’t want to do another one so soon! Cutting and duct tape aren’t in my vocabulary unfortunately so the dash was removed and refitted with the help of another member.

David.

David,
Thanks for the terrific photos!
Both of my 02s have decided the Left side needs to start leaking!
I have sealed the pollen filters and still they drip.
The only common denominator is both have no foam screen on the scuttle and this is the first time both have
been exposed to Douglas fir needles! The buggers slip in everywhere, and i am sure after seeing the photos that they
have managed to get into the drains under the pollen filter housings where they have joined the willow
leaves from their last home to make a really effective seal! Time to get some foam......
I now have a tent shelter as a garage for the Borrego, so I can take things apart without worrying about the copious rain we have here in the winter. Borrego will be first, then Bolt.
Thank you again for the detailed post!
Cheers,
Tom