Leaking into vent?

[arbo]

As I slowly take things apart, of course I find new things that will have to be fixed… I pulled the old rubber floor mat out, it cam out in pieces as it just broke apart. On the passenger side, the floors are not bad, but it appears that there is a leak up by the vent, or at the vent, where water comes in as it rains or snow melts… the insulation was soaked wet (we just had a snow melt off), and it appears the water drips down to the indents in the floor closets to the drivers side door, as that is where the rust is.

Just curious where the air comes into the vents. If anyone has seen this before. Or if perhaps it could be coming from elsewhere. There is a screw hole just below the blue dot on the firewall..

[arbo]

Where the 'leak' came down on the passenger side…

[arbo]

Drivers side much worse, not sure how you get in along that seam to 'fix' it, hopefully this is not a need to pull the whole cab sort of thing.

[sargentrs]

There's a couple of places, that could be coming from. The fresh air intake for the vents actually comes from the vents on the outside on top of the cowl. The cowl is open on both ends and leads down the door pillar. You can visualize it in this thread (toward the bottom) http://www.fordification.com/forum/view ... spot+welds The only thing that keeps water from accumulating is a drain hole at the bottom of the door pillar. Those areas tend to fill up with debris and water stays in there until it rusts through your kick panel like on your drivers side. That area can be cut out and new metal welded in. Replacement floor pans actually go from the tranny hump all the way to the door sill/kick panel. Another area would be where the heater hoses come in through the firewall. If the seal is bad, water from the road will get in through those holes. If you have a bad hood/cowl lacing, it's another source for water to bypass the natural drain path designed into the cab. Here's an open pic of the front of the cab and you can see the potential leakage spots.

[arbo]

Great info, I'll see of the cowl is plugged up and go from there.

[sargentrs]

And here's another thread with your similar issue http://fordification.com/forum/viewtopi ... 8ebe9ca1b4

[arbo]

Thanks again. Good stuff.

I went out and pulled the antenna so I could look down in there, full of leaf mulch. (The area in red in the photo from the other thread)… I managed to push out a couple handfuls of the crap through the little drain hole that runs out back there. Not sure how I'll do the other side, but I'll figure it out.

[flyboy2610]

Pull the heater unit and vent from inside (you'll have to drop the e-brake assembly to get the drivers side vent out) then put on a rubber glove and get in there!

[arbo]

Pull the heater unit and vent from inside (you'll have to drop the e-brake assembly to get the drivers side vent out) then put on a rubber glove and get in there!

Will do.

Out of curiosity, what is all the putty looking stuff (circled below)? Should that be there or is that just a bad 'fill' job by a previous owner?

[jimmy828]

If it is a hard rock putty it probably came from factory known as seam sealer. While my interior pieces were out of cab i replaced the seam sealer with new. Another place to look for leaks is under hood where cowl meets floor pans. About a 1" lip from driver side to pass side. There is seam sealer there also. Might be hard to see it with fender aprons and motor in the way.

[arbo]

Ok, thanks, I'll definitely need to remove the old stuff and put new stuff down, I've seen it along the firewall/floorpan area in the engine compartment, it's a big mess, probably someone in the past added some to stop previous leaks.