Found it, that elusive intermittent leak on the passengers side of the car.

Details, Inga is my silver, very faithful (72 miles every work day), 23 year old 1986 245DL, (new in late 85) 229K miles Swede with big plastic headlights.

There has been this off and on leak that has caused all kinds of damage in the rear floor board of Inga on the passengers side of the car. I have chased the wind shield, the dough nut seal on the wiper motor, the engine harness seal, and still when it rained hard, there was water on the floor board sometimes.

Todays episode started out with wet carpet after a hard rain (more than one actually) this past week. It was in the 70's this weekend and sunny so decided to try and clean our that side drain the BB talks about to see if that helps. Found an easy way to find it by the way, just pour some water right down the vents and look where the water comes out. Pulled out some leaves and junk, and the water did run much faster on the 2nd test. When I opened the door there was the water dripping down the carpet. The only place I had poured water was directly down that vent on the passengers side.

Now it was on! That leak was going down and down hard. Pulled the seat, the glove box, and pulled back the front section of carpet. Dried it all off and got a gallon of water in an old antifreeze container. Turned the bottle upside down right over the vent,dove in the car. For future reference watch those seat studs, almost put one in a bad place on the way in the car. Back to the story, there it was plain as day right in front of my eyes my phantom leak!

The ruined floor board, the new fuel pump relay ruined when it filled with water, and all that wet carpet is caused by water backing up inside the inner frame and leaking around the wiper motor hole. This was not coming from the dough nut seal on the firewall. This is a inside the sheet metal leak. The channel that drains the water from the vents, was letting water back up that channel. Then if enough backed up it was leaking around inner hole for the wiper motor. It mimicked a dough nut seal leak almost exactly. That is why I kept blaming the seal on the wiper motor.

Went and got some plumbers putty and rolled out a good bead of putty. Pulled the arm off the motor and started packing that hole off. Let is set up over night and then repeated the water test down the vent, and it was dry. Broke out the water hose and blasted water all over the front of the car and really let the vents have it, and no leak. It was time for the big test, There is a new car wash by the house that really soaked the carpet a week or so ago. Car came out clean and bone dry.

Regards,

Paul