Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Hi All,
I've just purchased a 1990 944 S2 in really good order - really pleased with it - and have just joined the club.
(I'll put a good picture up on the intro thread as soon as can take one).
However, I wondered if anyone could give me some advice with a water leak into the drivers side footwell?
(pretty topical at present with almost non stop rain for about the past month!)

On purchase I was aware of damp carpet in drivers side footwell. I'm fairly certain its coming from the bulkhead - no evidence of leaks from the sunroof.

I removed the plastic wiper motor trim cover (which was cracked and falling apart) and found lots of leaves and gunge had been allowed to build up against the bulkhead and around the wipers / heater etc. With great difficulty - its awkward - I have cleaned this all out pretty thoroughly with hoover, water etc and its pretty clean in there now - and the water channels down the gutters either side through front wings OK now.

I now need to repair the black plastic cover panel that goes over the top (its badly cracked in several places) before I refit to car - I'm guessing a seam of clear silicone sealant the best thing to use to seal it against the car along the top by the wipers?

However, water is still coming into the footwell on the drivers side - so I haven't fixed the point of leakage - problem is I can't see where that is. Is this just because I haven't refitted the plastic cover panel - which feeds the water down into the gutters?
Does anyone know where the water usually finds its way into the cabin - is it through the heater? I've looked and looked and poured water etc but still can't deduce where its actually coming in! Passenger side is dry.

There is no rot that I can find on the car, but I notice the water does tend to collect immediately behind the big black heater body intake. I'm putting the car under cover this weekend, but obviously I still need to solve the issue as I don't want the carpet ruined or risk rust in the footwell / sill area from the damp.

Anybody had this problem and can advise?

Im not much use as i have a cabriolet and still new to these cars.
Does the sunroof have drain tubes? Could they be blocked/broken and the water running down the A pillar.
Is there a drain point in the scuttle tray that could be blocked?

Hi, with regard to the heater cover, this is still available as a replacement part from Porsche (albeit really expensive for what it is ). You can repair the cracks using a good plastic glue and some thin strips of suitable plastic (such as margarine tub plastic) on the inside as repair patches. To reattach the cover to below the screen I used a good quality double-sided automotive foam tape (the sort that holds on number plates and other trim pieces, etc.) You just have to make sure all the surfaces are really clean and dry.

Just a thought regards the water coming in. On the drivers side of the engine there is a water rail that has a hose that comes through the bulkhead to feed the heater radiator. Might be an idea to check that the water coming in is not in fact the heater leaking in some way?

The heater itself (the top bit) sits in a large aperture which has a pretty good lip and seal, so water should not easily come in there, and with the leaves and crud removed the water should run off and out the wing drains. What you might have to do is gently run a hose in the panel (where the vac reservoir is located) and look up under the dash to watch for any drips, etc. It is a difficult position to get into , but believe me..if you are a 944 owner, you will become well versed in this!

Drains from the sunroof are also worth checking as they come down the A pillars, but can come adrift at the top, so the water actually runs down behind the plastic cover. Might be an idea to remove the trim and have a look there too.

One thing if you use a hose,work from the bottom up.
This gives you more of an idea at what height the water is ingressing at

Don't overlook the door seals, has anyone drilled holes in the bulkhead section in the past to fit alarms etc ? are they sealed ? you will have 4 x draintubes running from the sunroof, 2 rear 2 front pour some water in to each one after removing the sunroof and see where the water ends up.
Be careful if you are poking something down the holes as you could pop the drain tubes off and this is a roof lining out job to sort

Thanks for suggestions Chaps.
I will investigate the sunroof drains and also the heater pipe through the bulkhead etc as urgent Saturday morning; its been pouring with rain all day and the footwell is now very wet

I have been going through similar woes, so have some exeprience here. Funnily enough, my car has been quite a potential water feature, and have made a few fixes along the way, only to find none of them were the cause of my main leak!!

Since I've had the car, on & off it would gather water in the passenger rear footwell. The sunroof seal had been done before I got the car, and I had since tried spraying a hose over the car without much luck. The only leak I could find was a small one around the hatch seal, drivers side at the top - but it seemed unlikely that this would make it around to the rear pass footwell without gettting anything else wet!!

It had generally been OK, but after a car wash session it was wet again. And then again, a few days later (we've had a fair bit of rain lately), it was soaked yet again!! This time, I had been parking with the car nose high.

Along the way I have...

- resealed the rear lights

- reconnected the detatched fuel filler drain

- checked sunroof seal (all seems OK)

- checked hatch seal (minor leakage at top when hoses)

- checked hatch latch seals (minor leakage)

- checked from underneath the car (all seems OK)

Yet I still had a fair amount of water gathering after heavy rain.

The trouble was, when checking around the car you had to be patient as I found that the water was running in quite slowly, appearing along the outside edge of the seats runners, before pooling at rear footwell. I had pretty much narrowed it down to the bulkhead area.

On mine I found a bung on passenger side that was letting water through, however, this just falls straight onto front passenger carpet. The seam sealer around the bulkhead area has been known to crack (more likely on cars with battery in that area), and I have also seen cases of water running in from inner wing, where the bulkhead drains are. Worth pulling the side carpets out where hatch release & bonnet release are.

Other obvious one, is getting around the blower motor seal. If the cowling is cracked, as mine was, then water can build up here and get past the seal.

I removed my cowling and repaired it by plastic welding the cracks, and applying gaffer tape to the back. I'll smear some silicone over the cracked areas as well. I then put it back into place using double sided foam tape. 2mm butyl tape would be better, but I couldn't get any locally, and only had a reel of 8mm butyl tape/seal which would be far too fat.

I wanted to remove the blower housing to reseal (with the 8mm Butyl) but where water and leaves have covered, the rear centre fixing bolt has corroded away such that the head is a random shape!! I had to cut my losses here with the bad weather - I tried levering the box up hoping that the screw head would fail, but even then, in the cold, the seal & housing is so brittle that one corner started to crack. I sacked it off as a job to deal with in warmer weather, I'll have to drill the screw out and hope that the housing comes free with less of a fight!!

So I have refitted the cowling hoping that will keep most of it out, but even with the foam tape it is deformed enough to not make a full seal along the top edge, so water is still running down into blower area. After heavy rain i still had a little water in the footwell this morning.

I plan to gaffer tape over the top edge and try again, if that keeps it at bay for now - then all good until better weather. A bead of silicone would do it, but as I intend to remove again in the spring/summer, this would almost deifnitely end up with the cowling breaking more than it is already!!

Sorry for the long winded post, but with the weather as it is, and being short of time - this water ingress has been getting me quite annoyed!!

Also, as mentioned above - the last point I personally need to double check is the sunroof drains where they meet the dash area, as even though water is running out underneath the car - it could still be running internally as well.

As you can see, there are a number of places to check for leaks on these cars!! I never had this trouble with my old '89 Pug 205 back in the day, lol!

Ah yes but as the Porsche was a bit upmarket it came with a swimming pool

I would double check you have all the fixings that hold the heater motor unit in place some are awkward to get back in and someone may have left one or two out, happened on my S2 and the water then can run directly into the front well.

Thanks for help and suggestions everybody.

Well, after about 3 hours of pouring water, poking and pushing, lifting carpet & sound deading material etc - I still haven't 100% established exactly where the water is coming in!

However, I'm pretty certain its not the sunroof, tested drains and all seemed to be coming out onto the floor, so that's good.
No sign of anything coming in around pipes etc.

I'm pretty sure, probably 95%, that its seeping in around the back of the big heater blower intake box - as a little puddle can collect there. It's been exacerbated by the black plastic cover panel being cracked and allowing water to get in there in the first place (it should run off into either side nearer the front wing drains).

Very hard to detect as it then seeps in over a period of time, so you can't spot drips etc, and I believe is trickling in behind the sound deadening material in the car in front of the gearbox tunnel.

I have the car under cover now and am repairing the Wiper motor / heater intake black plastic cover panel. In the summer I might get the intake off and seal it up properly underneath again prior to refitting it all.

Whilst checking the sunroof I went and broke the passenger side Sunroof wind visor hinge, so more work and expense!

There's a good chance of that OP.

I have been through all of the common leak points, and more, and after lots of faffing was 95% convinced it was getting in around the blower unit.

I had repaired the cracks in my cowling, but where it has warped over time, it was sticking up around the passenger side wiper arm mount, so water was running down in behind the cowl here.

In time I will buy a replacement cowling, but for now I have repaired, reiftted with double sided foam and any gaps I have bridged with silicone.

Before all this though I had another go at removing the blower unit, and even though it wasn't obvious where the seal had failed, there was some water in the duct work below, so am pretty confident that now I have resealed it, all will be OK.

It rained a little today, but tomorrow I will give her a wash - fingers crossed!

^^^ Hi Andy, I did wonder if this could be the cause of your problem as the panel has quite a lip on it for the seal to push on when the blower is fitted. I understand that a breach in the seal would allow some capillary action to occur, but that could only happen if water was pooling for long periods at the point of the seal breach..? The amount of the wet stuff you have coming in really points to it being a bit more major somewhere else.

Have you looked at the internal sunroof seal, water can pool in the roof channel and if the drains don't take it away it could drop straight into the cabin? But again, it has to be quite a bit to overcome the lip, etc...

Sorry to hear your problems are still ongoing...

However, for the OP, this could be the issue as only small amounts are getting in..here's hoping...working on the heater blower is a real faff, lots of opportunity for scuffed knuckles!

I hear what you are saying Rhett, but I had certainly localised the leak point to the bulkhead area. So I thought it had to be that, but I must admit, when I didn't see an obvious breach of the seal, I did have some doubts. I actually wonder if water can get it into the blower assembly through the seam of the two halves, as there is no seal at that point. It would have to be high water though, or leaking from above - i.e. cowling.

I poured 10L of water over the passenger corner of the lower windscreen today, and had a small amount of water in the footwell some minutes later. I think the only time it gets a lot of water in there is after hours of rain when it is a constant flow.

I did wonder if it was running in from the inner sill as it appears from the box section just in front of seat mounts, which joins the inner sill. I put an endoscope down the inner sill earlier and couldn't see any water. I think if there was that much in the inner sill, I'd hear it sloshing around.

The other place that looks a bit suspect is the sealant around the fuse box, but I have previously flooded this area with water without any getting into the cabin.

Ho hum - it will be another weekend spent rolling around in the footwell!!