Mystery Water on passenger side

[watsonjr1]

Here's a good one. The carpeting on the front passenger side of our '99 Town Car is soaking wet. We have had the vehicle checked out two or three times and it doesn't seem to be the cowl or the heater. We have a sunroof with a cloth top and we've been told that the stitching has dry rotted and the cloth lifted and that perhaps water is coming in through the column next to the passenger window. They want to replace the top at great expense. Anyone heard of this problem?

Thanks:

 

[maxmk8]

Sounds like the drainage passages have clogged. Make sure the sunroof drainage holes are free of debris.

 

[logres]

Another thing that can happen...at least on 85 T-Birds...is that the drain for AC condensation can get clogged. I'm sure that the Mark design is not like this, but I'm just throwing this out there.

 

[LeoC2]

If it's not the sunroof drains it may be coming from a bad seal around the windshield. Take a hose and give it a good blast around the seals and see if you can spot a leak. If you have glass insurance maybe call your insurance company and tell them the window is leaking and they should replace the glass for you.

 

[driller]

Welcome!

If it was the sunroof it would have been wet on the headliner if the floor was 'soaked'. Dollar to a donut it's the passenger side cowl. There was a TSB on such leakage. Find a dealer that knows of this.

 

[Lonnie]

I just purchased a 2000 TC myself. I discovered the pass side front and back kept getting wet also. I haven't even had it a month and besides the water inside the rear end has gone out and both headlights filled with water.

We have had cool weather for the entire time I've had the car so I haven't had the AC on. I first suspected the old heater core since Ford's cores are always leaking. The standing water didn't have the anti freeze taste to it and I wasn't losing anything in the cooling system. So I suspected the condensation from the AC condenser. Since I've had this happen in both the Tbird and Mark. The drain hole becomes clogged with slime just like your house unit. Then the liquid fills up the housing until it finds a way to escape. Well I didn't find any problem there. I finally got it all dried out when we got the big storm last weekend. I haven't driven the car because I have to rebuild the rear first. So there has been no run time on it since it dried out. During our latest storm we received 7 inches of rain in 16 hours. I went to put the registration in the glove box when I found there was standing water over 2" above the carpet. Today I got the wetvac out and sucked it all down again. I need to pull the seats and really dry it out now. Anyways, it's not the sunroof or there would be a soaked headliner. So it has to be a seal in the cowling or windshield. Hopefully I can pull it apart this weekend and run a hose to find exactly where it is.

I've talked to several others about it and Ford. Ford denies there's any problem with these cars. But 2 out of 5 people I've talked to say they have the same problem so they keep the cars in the garage since they can't get Ford to find and fix the problem. Seems that if I can find 2 out of 5 then add mine in this small area that there's got to be a lot more going on and Ford doesn't want to deal with it.

 

[Lonnie]

I just finished my repairs to the TC today. All in all it took about 15 minutes to fix the problem, too bad the previous owner didn't bother to do it. It would have saved me a lot of time and money.

I found the drain for the cowling on the pass. side completely full of pine needles and tiny leaves. Getting the wipers off was the toughest part of that. They are supposed to just pull off but mine were stuck. Once I got the top half of the cowling off I could clean out the trash. After that mess was cleaned up I could see through the bottom cowling into the inlet for the fan. It was the same, completely full of trash. So I had to pull that off also. Once that was out of the way I could clean the screen and let it dry out. In the mean time I noticed all the foam insulation was rotten and not worth a damn for sealing. So I actually had water coming in from the bottom of the cowl besides the top filling up and then over flowing into the ventilation system.

I clean everything up, dried it all out then replaced all the foam. This took a better part of a full day to do. If the drain was kept clear this wouldn't had been such a PITA.

Now for the carpet; it was soaked to the point that there was over an inch of standing water in the front and the back was up into the electronics of the front pass. seat. Now when I first bought the car the carpet was wet on both sides and they told me they had just detailed it and scrubbed the carpet. 2 weeks later it was still wet and then we got more rain. 7 inches in 8 hours one of the days.

Two weeks later and the carpet was still wet even with heaters and fans. I ended up pulling out all the seats and trim molding to help it dry out and it did no good. The parts that were dry when I picked it up my fingers tore through it, so the carpet was wasted.

I pulled the carpet out yesterday after receiving a new one from Ford, not cheap either. Put fans on the fire wall insulation to get it dry while using towels to soak up the moisture from the foam. The trim molding had started to grow mold besides the whole floor pan. All the leather had spots of mold. While the car dried out I spent all of yesterday and then 7 more hours today cleaning all the leather, wire brushing the rust and sealing it, cleaning the rust from the seat tracks and lubricating them. I got everything to work now but the bolster pumps, cleaned all trim molding, disassembled the all the seat belts and cleaned them since they also had mold growing on them and they were pretty dirty to begin with.

After that it was time to put the new carpet in and reassemble the car. All this could have been avoided if the cowl drain was kept clean. That's the last time I buy a car off ebay and take over someone else's problems.