barelyrunshalfthetime

ok, went to vaccum the costco mats that are in my 83 944 today, and found a nice little surprise under the rear mat on the passenger's side. a HUGE puddle of water, and the mat was soaked. this is the first time i have ever seen this happen to this car, then again, its been garaged since my dad got it, till now when he booted it out of the garage maybe 2 or 3 months ago. anyways, the wetness stops on the carpet at the back of the passenger seat. where the heck is the rainwater coin from? sunroof drain? battery compartment? I vaccumed out most of the water with the shop vac, the windows are rolled down, and the mat is drying in the bushes as we speak. jw if y'all can help me out w/ this. thanx in advance.

icat

One possibility - check the passenger front window seal at the upper corner. If the rubber has cracked or split the water can enter there. Sunroof drains are another possibility as you mentioned. Try taking a water bottle and squirting water in various spots along the seals to see if they are leaking.

barelyrunshalfthetime

ok well im testing to see about the batt. tray now, because i checked the front pass. carpet and it is a little damp. my car is on an incline so i think the water just rolled to the back and puddled up there.

jpk

I'd put money on the battery tray. The sealant used for body seams has a tendency to crack after 20+ years, and of course the rust from the battery acid eatting away at the metal.

Pull the battery and start poking around a bit and you'll find loose sealant in the seams and likely some small rust holes.

Part of the issue is that all the water running off the windshield ends up in the battery tray and is supposed to drain out into the engine compartment.

Not real difficult to fix but it takes a little time to do it properly. I basically did four steps:

1) cleaned everything up as best I could with a wire brush in the drill. I also picked out as much loose/cracking seam sealant that I could.

2) couple of coats of rust reformer onto any bare/rusted metal surfaces.

3) urethane caulk to seal any seams and small rust holes. I was only dealing with a few pinholes, so I just spread the caulk over the area. If the holes are a little bigger (maybee up to 1/2") you could probably just build up a patch with a piece of wire window screen and the caulk. Anything bigger than that and I'd look at making a fiberglass patch. Look at the home improvement store for gutter and siding sealant if you have trouble finding this stuff. It's pretty much the same stuff they used at the factory.

4) after masking off the area with newspaper, I sprayed in a couple coats of rubberized undercoating (any auto parts store will have this).

The result is a (hopefully) 20 year patch, but I'll check under the battery every few years and spray in another coat of undercoating if it needs it.

barelyrunshalfthetime

thanx yea it was definitely that batt. tray. i lost about 1 inch of water in roughly half an hour. so i just cleaned it up the best i could and found several areas where it looks a little rusty. my dad claims to have fixed the problem a long while ago, then sprayed in the rubberized undercoating. so i guess im gonna need to address this at some point, but for now, im just gonna havta leave the car pointing down the driveway and let it drain the water out. it started raining like right after i threw everything back together and we pulled the car around so its facing down the driveway, so i couldnt do anything about it yesterday. ill just havta add it to the old to do list. thanx for that procedure tho, should help when i get around to it.