Whenever I wash the car or it rains good my drivers side carpet gets wet. I know that the water goes down the louvers in the cowling and magically drains out at the bottom of the car. The drivers side seems to be somewhat plugged and I don't have any good ideas how to clear it. Open to suggestions. I am not sure where or how to clean out the drainage system. Also, is there anything else I want to check/seal/repair or do while I am in the process?

you may have already checked,but almost every time ive had a water leak on a 240 its been the lower corners of the windshield,it will look like its coming from cowl.good luck!

Along the bottom of the rocker panels are about 5 or 6 drain holes. You can open them temporarily by poking a little nail or small screwdriver in each drain hole. A more permanent fix is to take out the front seat, pull up the carpet, and access the inside of the rocker panels through some round holes that have plastic caps on them. Pull the caps and you can stick a hose right into the inside of the panels and wash a lot of stuff out the drain holes. Make sure the drain holes haven't been pinched shut over the years. I also found compressed air helpful. Once you get everything cleaned out, try not to park where leaves and crud land all over the louvers.
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Thanks everyone for all the information and advice, Doug C. 81 242 Brick Off Blocks, stock, B21F (non-Turbo), M46; 86 244, B230, 140k , auto.

Thanks for the info. Sounds like an hour or two should fix my problem. Doesn't even involve much use of the brain which can be a good thing.

When I first saw those drain holes, it was because a small leaf had made its way in through the hood grille, down the channel (it's like 3 x 4 in) and into the rocker panel. Then it was rain-drained towards one of the holes but wouldn't fit through, so the pointy end just hung out there for me to see.

Otherwise I wouldn't have ever seen them.

Along the bottom of the rocker panel is a wide weld part. Every so many inches that weld strip is not welded, the two parts are formed apart, and that's the drain. Easily found while lying under the car for some reason, like an oil change (when you inspect other things, right?).

I have see on the board that a good way to clear out the glotch that gets in there is with a vacuum cleaner, and the panel opened up by pullling out those plastic covers. They are about 2 inch diameter.

In addition, the larger square panel on which the lower front seat belt anchor bolt is mounted can be removed and the vacuum nozzle stuck in there.

When the carpet gets wet, the water might seem to evaporate. NOT. It can get into the foam padding, which has a rubber scrim on the top side so water cannot evaporate. By the time you can smell the mold/mildew, the water may have rusted a drain hole in the floorboard, or flowed through the side channels into the rear foot wells where it will start rusting, too.

Pull the seats and carpets and pads. I did that, and ran with a set of plastic floor trays sitting on top of about 15 - 20 layers of old newspapers. Rather noisy, and the water still got in, but I could keep the inside pretty dry by changing out the papers until I could fix the leak and dry the pads and carpet.

Good Luck,

Bob

:>)

Good info. Doesn't seem to technical which is a good thing. Just a little grunt work. I'll be sure and check my floors. Thanks.

Be sure that the drain hoses in the truck (if it's a sedan) didn't come disconnected. It's a y-shaped set of drainage hoses that can easily come apart when luggage or something is pushed up against it. I had a big water leak from that and reconnected the hoses with no probelms since. This may be a duh! recommendation but it took me a while to figure it out.

Unless the carpets are really soaked and you need to pull them all out and run them through the dryer, you shouldn't need to remove the seats. Just pull off the plastic strip along the bottom of the door opening (it's held by spring clips), then you can pull back the carpet to expose the plastic plugs.

There's another recent thread about putting a screen under the air intake to keep the leaves out in the future if you get a lot of that stuff.

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'81 GLT 245 W/245K; '83 DL 175K