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The existence of a drain line under the cowl vent panel?

I'm getting water at night, when parked on an incline....I'm assuming that there is one and it's plugged.

ditto ....water runs in (from heater box?) along my wire harness and drips on my right foot , I had fenders off but did not notice any drain. I assume the water is coming from the drivers side cowl where there is an opening and running over to the pass. side. I was thinking of trying to build some sort of dam on the drvr. side to block water but still allow air. Just a thought from someone with a soggy right foot.

Might be the AC condensate drain that is plugged. On air conditioned vehicles this drain allows moisture to be removed from the air and drained to the outside.

It's usually a flimsy 1/2" round rubber hose on the engine side of the firewall near the heater core area. The end is usually pinched (not sure why).

I usually cut the tip off or slice the pinched area and unplug it with something like a pen or whatever you have that will fit in there. On one of my cars the water soaked my feet on hard turns. You'll know right away if it was plugged when you poke the pen up there. :laugh3:

Good luck,
Jay in MA

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red91inWA said:

The existence of a drain line under the cowl vent panel?

Click to expand...

it's been a while, but i used to have a leak in my '98. i check the usual places like that drain tube that was already mentioned but it was unclogged and working just fine. so i proceeded to pour water on the xj and find where the leak was coming from. i opened the hood and poured water into the cowl vent area. IF I RECALL CORRECTLY (read: my memory is fuzzy), there isn't a drain line per-say under it. but it does simply drain onto the engine side of the firewall. (Oh, btw, all of these tests were on the passenger's side where i had my leak)

My leak actually was because of a small gap under the heater core. all that was in the small opening was the insulation foam around the heater. that would allow water to pour into the passenger's side floor board when it rained. i siliconed the hole up and haven't had a problem since.

red91inWA said:

The existence of a drain line under the cowl vent panel?

I'm getting water at night, when parked on an incline....I'm assuming that there is one and it's plugged.

Click to expand...

There is a drain under your crowl, remove the crowl and blow it out, also repair any loose or dried out caulk while your in there.

If you remove the cowl cover plate over the cowl area, you will see that this area drains off to the sides, toward the fenders. Under the sheet metal area on the passenger's side, there is an intake for outside air. This intake is just slightly taller than the flat part under the cowl where it drains off.

I suspect that since you are parked at an incline (assuming nose end up), water is collecting enough against the firewall, and the back side of the outside air intake, to leak inside. I guess you could park nose end down and see if it still leaks....

Make sure you have good drainage (ie clear out the leaves and debris). While you are there, you should also apply some silcone sealant around the outside air intake, incase that seal is deteriorated. In my case, I had to cut out some of the sheet metal above the outside air intake to squeeze my hand in and apply silicone for a suspect leak around the outside air intake, I had on my '98. You can use some plastic sheet and silicone to cover up the hole you cut out. If you don't water has a direct route to your outside air intake.

My leak turned out to be the seal between the firewall and the blower box. Ample silcone on the foam seal cured my leak there...