Massive Leak When It Rains

[RockysDad]

It's driving me crazy! I have a massive problem when it rains. It seems that just the rear passenger side footwell gets flooded every time it rains. I don't mean just damp but at least 2" of water collects there. I've closed off any openings on the roofline gutters and rear trunk side gutters with silicon and had no luck. I ended up lifting the carpet and drilling a few holes just to let some of the water drain. I think I will now go and pull that rubber plug in the middle of the floor pan to help things out.

For the life of me, I can't figure out how the water is coming in. I've sat in the car with running the garden hose and watched the water collect but can't see where it is coming in from.

It seems that there is a crack in the floor plan but does that matter? I tried patching that with roofing tar. Any ideas or has anyone else have this problem? I've got a 1993 ES300.

[1990LS400]

Here is a short list of past threads I found by using the advanced search to search the 92-06 ES forum for the both the words "leak" (+leak) and "carpet" (+carpet): http://us.lexusownersclub.com/forums/index...Bleak+%2Bcarpet

It's likely other relevant past threads could be found by searching for other words.

[pberku]

There are several tricks you can use to try and locate the leak.

1) Lift the carpet and sprinkle lots of Talcum powder on the bare car floor, then once the water infiltrates, you can easily trace it back towards the source of the leak by looking at the traces in the Talcum powder.

2) UV dye is not a practical option in this case, but instead you can use some food coloring. Pour some food coloring into a bucket full of water, and pour the water where you suspect that the source of the water infiltration may be, such as for example around the sunroof. If the food coloring ends up in the car, than you can figure out what needs to be repaired. Do One section at a time.

Phil

[RockysDad]

Okay, I've search around a bit and found out that the sunroof drain tubes could be clogged. So now I want to clean them out. I think I know how but exactly where do you find the drain tubes? It seems that they are hidden behind the rear bumper covers and the front firewall. So how are people running wire through them and/or shooting compressed air when they aren't even visible or easy to get to. Are they taking the rear bumper covers off or even the headliners? So what's the trick????

Any tips or pics are welcome also...

[gbhrps]

Rockysdad,

I've fixed my share of sunroof replacements and repairs on different cars and the drain tubes are usually all in the same location. The fronts rundown the inside of the A pillar and drop out between the body of the car and the front fender, very near the bottom of the front fender. It may be possible to see them hanging down on some models, and if not, usually removing the bottom bolts on the fender right at the front door, one can pull the fender out far enough to locate the tube.

The rears drop down the C pillar and exit the between the rear bumper cover and the rear body side. Usually you can remove the rear mud guard and the bolt at the seam between the rear bumper cover and the body, right at their common seam at the rear wheel opening. This may allow you to pull the rear bumper guard away from the body enough to locate the drain.

The other common problem is that the plastic drain tubes may have split or shrunk enough to pull off right where they connect to the plastic or metal drain connections of the sunroof channel. The only access to those areas is to drop the headliner, not a hard job to do, but it does take some time. Good Luck!

[RockysDad]

I found the ones in the rear and it indeed was clogged. Its funny that the passenger side footwell was flooded but the driver side drain tube was clogged. When I cleared that one about another pint of water drained out. Imagine. I had that much water flooded over my head all this time...

Thanks again for all your help. Now I need to look for the ones in the front just in case...