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Leak into footwell


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I had a footwell leak and it turned out to be coming from a bolt holding the door retaining bracket to the bulkhead. You may well be correct about the origin, goodness knows there are enough places it can come in, but before doing anything remedial, I'd try to prove your theory by getting a helper with a hose to wet areas while you look inside. You may have to remove some trim. Once the source is established a fix is usually simple, and worth testing after to prove it is fixed - there may be more than one leak.  

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Fix it!

Buy another one!?!

Dont pick up passengers when it rains!!!

Stay out of water!

Buy wellies!

Learn to swim!?!

Keep the door shut!

Sorry couldn't resist...... Just the child in me, honest....

1st thing dry it all off and find where the water is coming in, then you will know what to fix/resolve.

When it's dried off get a mate to hose it down while you sit inside and see if you can spot the leak point of entry?

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There was a link in our own Tech Archive, but it no longer works!

Try this:

https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-rover/defender-water-ingress-manual.310782/

Happy reading!

The windscreen "Blocks" (look like hinges) are a common source of water ingress - a good coating of sealant fixes that quite quickly.

Edited by Steve King
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My missus’s 2003 90 SW leaked into the footwell on the N/S and O/S soaking the carpets, and after literally years of trying to sort it on and off including replacing vent flap seals, door seal, and numerous other efforts l eventually discovered that water was leaking in through the sky light seal, running along the inside of the roof rail, down the inside of the door seal at the front, across the plastic cover for the door check arm, behind the dash and on to the floor!!

Two new sky light seals cured it.

Edited by Lightning
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Check the door weather seal CFE102991 for folds or creases. Most of the usual water ingress points have been metioned. Really is a case of finding the point and sadly that is the fustrating time consuming bit, with hose pipe and a mate. Dont have the water bladting out, just a good steady flow. Go all round the door frame, then run it down from tom of windscreen. Once any drip is spotted or even water running down footwell pannels trace it back to point of entry and this should give you the problem to solve!?!

If it's any consolation we have all been here at one time or another and some of us several times.

Let us know how you get on

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I've been chasing leaks since I got mine, it doesn't leak from normal rain if it's parked on the flat but it came in for the first time in a few weeks the other day when the rain was very heavy and my foot got a dripping. You have to hand it to LR it doesn't matter where the water comes in, it always seems to drip off the check strap directly onto where your foot sits on the accellarator. Sometimes I'll park it on a slope or the wind will be in just the right direction to push it in somehow and it's back to the drawing board. It's really frustrating.

I went at it the other way round to what's been suggested in the end, although I did try to find the source with a hose at first.  The hose suggested it was the vents or the window hinges so I made some new vent seals and sealed the hinges up but it still came in. In the end I bought a tube of sealant and pretty much sealed everything in the water ingress manual and then some other places that looked like it might be worth it. Took about half a day. Next plan is going around the front door seals, replacing the taped/dumdumed corners and trying to crimp it on a bit tighter. I saw a video of someone extending the bonnet gutter so the run off went out across the wing instead of trickling down the bulk head so I'll try that as well.

If you have access to a smoke machine you can trace leaks by having the blowers on instide then with all the doors shut move the smoke machine nozzle around the outside, if you see the smoke disturbed by air pushing it away from the landy then you've found your leak.

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Over the years i have found the door seal to be the main cause, for me at least!?!.... Especially between the hinges where it gets squeezed when the door is shut, if it forms a fold or a crease in the soft rubber it always seems to run water INTO the motor NEVER out!!! Grrrrrrrrr

That said the only real cure is to get a NEW GENUINE one! Dont bother with any other aftermarket makes, yes they are cheap but sure as hell dont work! Genuine expensive yes, but do the job better for longer!

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I agree.. Door seal around the area where it kinks behind the door strap...

 

I also found that water was going around the windscreen rubber... Where the rubber lays on the frame. With corrosion under the rubber it was like a capillary action sucking water up and then dripping down inside the bulkhead. Of course, it found it's way to the same point and dripped on my right foot.

I applied sealant around the rubber after getting a flat wood chisel in there and removing a lot of the corrosion. Next time the screen needs to come out I'll rub down and re-spray the frame.

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1 hour ago, V8 Freak said:

I agree.. Door seal around the area where it kinks behind the door strap...

 

I also found that water was going around the windscreen rubber... Where the rubber lays on the frame. With corrosion under the rubber it was like a capillary action sucking water up and then dripping down inside the bulkhead. Of course, it found it's way to the same point and dripped on my right foot.

I applied sealant around the rubber after getting a flat wood chisel in there and removing a lot of the corrosion. Next time the screen needs to come out I'll rub down and re-spray the frame.

Mine leaks mainly via the windscreen too and finds its way into the footwell.

IMG_0923.thumb.JPG.69ebe8e68ef4f947b94b1a2c9e7f688d.JPG

 

 

Even thou the seal looks as good as new, sealant during installation seems to be the best option. It looks like it gets in anywhere/everywhere and then just runs to the lowest point, I have checked all around the seal on mine and I can see water all in every place I looked, just peel back the seal and take a look, if you see water then it's getting in:

IMG_0926.thumb.JPG.fcd5cc84ebbe9995b7629c044570d6bb.JPG

My door seal also used to leak, like V8 Freak said, its a bad fit around the kink, in my case the rubber seal was not a very tight fit, probably due to being removed and put back on a few times. A new seal plus a bit of dumdum fixed this issue:

IMG_0927.thumb.JPG.daa07dfb59b1b6c05f8526642a0d5a46.JPG

On the picture below the red lines indicate where the water comes from on mine, there is a channel the length of the dashboard which the windscreen seal sits above, water collects in here and builds up until it runs out of one end into the footwell, also under this there is another channel where it runs to from a leaking vent (i have this too a small degree also).

IMG_0921.thumb.JPG.a28c358db293126e31e21e35333bdc02.JPG

 

I hope to be leak free one day :)

 

 

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Good find!.......Ahh and so it begins!?!.....Which sealant to use? (None Silicon)...How far either side to use sealant? (Save the hassel later on and go ALL round).......3 months later....WHY is my Defender STILL leaking???? (Because it's a DEFENDER!!!)..... Good luck and enjoy :)

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Local windscreen fitter quoted me £90 to refit with a new seal + additional sealant, he says he has done a few defenders and if you don’t bother sealing them they very often leak! Tempted to swap the screen for a heated one while it is out!

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I had a new windscreen in after hitting a pheasant and having watched him do it I would probably do it myself next time. He charged £75 but it was just a 5 minute job and if you do it yourself you can give the surface a proper clean up and repaint where as if you get someone else to do it they'll probably just slap it back in like they did with mine which might mean your problem still persists.

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Similar issue with water in the foot well of my 1997 110 also. This post has prompted me to look a fresh look at it. Probably will be out with the watering can tomorrow to diagnose.

Turns out need a new windscreen in any case as a chip is becoming enlarged. Been dwelling on whether to fit this myself or get somebody in. As Sharp mentions above, liking the "freedom" to give the surface a proper clean, new rubbers, seal, etc... under my own steam. Hearing 50/50 with respect to comments on this being a DIY job. Nervous about cracking the new screen.

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I spent some time leakproofing my Defender> two places to check are -

 

At the bottom of the windscreen-frame there is a U-shaped channel, designed to catch water running down the screen and stop it coming in through the vents. This runs through the screen-mounting blocks, but the gap the water has to flow through between the U-channel and the mounting-blocks is tiny. Easily fills up with moss/mud/bird-poo then the water accumulates in the channel and spills-out over the vent-flaps.  Poke something thin [I use the tail-end of a cable-tie] into the gap to clear it and let the U-channel drain freely.

 

In the top front corners of the roof/door aperture, where the roof and the screen-frame come together, and where the roof-gutter dumps its water, the factory would have fitted a blob of mastic. This hardens with age and shrinks, leaving a gap through which gutter-channeled water can get into the top of the screen-frame then run down on the inside of the door-seal to emerge somewhere at random (or get cappiliaried into the edge of the seal-mounting frame on the bulkhead to cause rot). I dug out the old mastic (not that hardto do) and replaced it, then filled the channel in the door-seals with Waxoyl before refitting them, so the metal edge of the door-aperture is protected.

 

Finally, my alpine lights were leaking and following the advice from a nautical-friend's father, I got hold of some "Captain Tolley's Creeping Crack Seal" - http://www.captaintolley.com/

which I dribbled into the glass/seal and seal/body gaps. No more water in the roof-channels above the doors!

 
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For those of you thinking of refitting you windscreen!?!.....DO IT YOURSELF!

It's not as scary as you think, honest......

There was/is a link on here somewhere of a pro doing the job and the only tool he used was an old rope washing line!!!

And it WORKS!...i follewed the post to the letter and it was a breeze!...... some people advocate using washing up liquid, this guy didn't and i didn't!.....

I would give x2 bits of advice 1....Take your time, it's not a race..... 2... Get a Genuine or at least an OEM windscreen seal. Aftermarket ones are either very stiff or differ in size.

Find the thread and do EXACTLY what the guy does and use exactly what he uses..... like i said i did and i have NEVER attempted anything like it before!

 

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1 hour ago, Tanuki said:

my alpine lights were leaking and following the advice from a nautical-friend's father, I got hold of some "Captain Tolley's Creeping Crack Seal" -

That might work but what i normally do is just use gutter sealant on those windows  - its a non setting cartridge  mastic which can be run around the lip of the roof aperture (er, best done after taking the rooflight out, so it makes the job a bit longer). It does work though - Merc used to uise it on the older rear fixed windows of their estates that had a rubber seal. (Except Merc didnt use the diy shed variety that costs about £2.50). But even with that approach you'll find after about 12/15 years it does go a bit solid - at which point you get to do the job all over again!

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22 minutes ago, Mutley said:

.. some people advocate using washing up liquid, this guy didn't and i didn't!.....
 

 

A lot of washing-up-liquid contains salt as a 'thickener' - now we all know our Land Rovers rust quickly enough without adding extra salt!

Someone I know who had to refit the windscreen in his 1950s alloy-bodied Bristol was advised to use, er, "intimate lubricant" because it is both highly slippery and does not harm rubber.

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