Water dripping from driver's side for hours after rain

[webbiegareth]

Hi all,

Another problem with the "new" car my other half acquired from her mother (1999 AU Series 1).... there appears to be a blockage somewhere. When it rains, I know it's supposed to drain from roughly the mudflaps, and it'll drip for a short while as it gets rid of the water. It does this on the passenger side.

On the driver's soon, it continued to drip for around 12+ hours after the rain had stopped, and left a large pool of water under the driver's side door. So there's definitely water pooling up somewhere and taking a long while to escape. And instead of coming out of the mudflap area, more water seems to come from under the driver's door instead.

I tried to clean and remove all the dirt/gunk from behind the mudflap, and got rid of the leaves in the airvent area, but it's not helped. I stuck my hand in the door frame area and could feel a bit of rust (my partner's parents lived a few streets away from a beach), perhaps there's now a hole letting water pool up where it shouldn't.

So, I made some videos of me pouring some water onto the windscreen, and watching where it comes out...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9CLBNXVF8M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUQf-vNAbk4

Any ideas?

[Rambunctious]

I had the same problem with the son's ute, here is what you need to do.

Make sure the car is safely supported.

Remove the drivers wheel then remove the mud flap and the plastic panel above the mud flap between the wheel and the drivers door. You might have to just wedge the plastic panel back for memory.

Look in there and you will see where the subframe comes down on an angle to join the subframe at the front of the door (this is where the water comes down)and you will see the gap is small so get a large screwdriver or builders pinch(wrecking) bar and lever the panel toward the front of the car to open it up, then put the garden hose up there and flush it to remove all the built up dirt.

I then dried it with a heat gun(very hot hair dryer) and sprayed a gutfull of spray can paint in there, then when that had dried, I put an oil catch tray on the ground and if you lift the bonnet, you will see where the water from the windscreen goes down the corner.

I jammed a rag up the opening at the base and I poured plenty of old sump oil down there because imo, that's the best rust preventer you can use in this situation.

It is usually only the drivers side that is like this. The passanger side was ok on the ute.

[mik]

i know after washing mine i get a puddle the same area, i`m pretty sure in my case it`s coming out of the drain holes in the bottom of the door.

[mik]

actually just thinking about it , i have noticed some days it does`nt drip for long, other days i park it on a different angle, i think some water does`nt drain out till i get that correct angle again and it may still leak the next day.

[webbiegareth]

Okay guys... an update, it's fixed now

I took the car into a panel beaters for some rust repair under the driver's door (was required for the roadworthy), and asked them to check it out and clean it up at the same time. They said they removed the right front panel and cleaned it up and bit (there was a bit of rust back there too), and cleaned out the vents.

Trouble is, they didn't actually fix the problem of the pooling water... the same day I got the car back, it poured with rain and I found water was pooling in that very same spot. I found on the passenger's side that same spot... it's an angled piece of body work, sort of like a slice of cake with the sharp end pointing down. Water was coming out that sharp end on the passenger's side (there's a thin slit/gap there).

On the driver's side, it wasn't... it was filling up that wedge/cake shape metal until it overflowed (which you can see in the youtube clip).

I took a large cable tie, and curved it around the doorframe and up the sharp end of that wedge and just wiggled it around... and suddenly it uncloged and all the water drained out very quickly

So that's all it was... it was blocked at that point. Dunno what the hell the panel beaters were doing then. :(

[mik]

well done, in answer to your last question............ probably not much.