Leak suddenly coming from above accelerator pedal area.

Yesterday when I went to go home from work, I discovered to my dismay, a small "lake" on the rubber mat and very soggy carpet on the driver's side of the van. We only had relatively light rain and I am sure that the window and door were shut properly (I think I would have preferred that they weren't!).

As far as I can recall, I haven't had this problem before. I am wondering if the corrugations on the weekend have loosened something.

I have read some of the posts re this issue on this forum.

My van does have a sun roof in the front, so where should I look to locate the drain lines which apparently should be somewhere and what do I need to remove to inspect them to see if they are blocked?

What else, in order of ease to get to, should I investigate to try and locate the source of the leak if it's not the sunroof drain lines? I had a brief look at the window seal outside and it appears to be ok. I'll have another, more thorough look on the weekend.

As an aside, which side of the car would the drain lines for the central and rear moonroofs be located? What would I need to remove to get to these?

Any help would be much appreciated. My partner is starting to give me some grief about buying this van...

Werner

You have several choices of leaks in that area.
1. The windscreen itself. (And if you have been going over corrugations recently it can move the screen / rubbers enough to make them leak)
2 The lower windscreen drain tube on that side has had a hole worn through it by rubbing on a panel whilst going over the corrugations.
3. you left the door or window open.

Of the 3 choices,
I reckon that the first one is the problem and it can be fixed by a windscreen company easily by resealing the screen. (It does not need the screen to be removed to do that).
the second one is a right royal cow to fix as the tubes are hard to replace (and it involves windscreen and grille / headlight removal)
The third one is the easiest to fix.(Shut the damned door / window)

I dont think that the sunroof is leaking, you would have noticed it long before the corrugated roads)

I hope this helps.

I'm pretty sure that it wasn't option 3

I had the panel, which runs under the steering column, off on the weekend as well as the speaker unit to try and see if I could spot anything obvious.

The only thing I could see was some rusty looking stains which ran along the underside of a silvery coloured "tube" which I assume is a duct of some kind. But where those stains originated from, I couldn't see. I think Fiona had a picture of this duct when she put up a post re this topic.

I didn't see any sign of any drain pipe.

I might have to have another read on how to remove the headlight/grill and then have a look for the drain pipe.

Are you sure it is water?
They can leak atf from the back of the speedo when the seal in the trachoid pump on the side of the gearbox fails...as you drive the spinning cable sucks up the fluid (power steering fluid)...on mine it would drip on my left foot...the cure was a new trachoid pump from toyota

I am pretty sure it was water as it was colourless & didn't have an oily feel or any odour to it. Also, it happened after it had rained and hasn't happened since as we have had beautiful sunny spring weather.
The steering hasn't been affected either.

We are due for more rain tomorrow, so we'll see what happens. I think I might put an icecream container and a towel near the pedal as a precaution as the carpet is almost dry.

also hope that its not brake fluid... there is a brake reservoir up behind the dash on that side, just check the brake flui level to make sure.
Mine had a leak in similar area, but it turned out to be a missing rubber grommet UNDER the carpet. the the front tyre was splashing water up under the carpet!

I'd go for sun roof drain. Just needs roding out. Drain points are at the front each side.

Certainly not brake fluid, Datman. Have to have another look re grommet though.

Clive, where is the best access point for sunroof drain points? I didn't see any sign of them on the weekend when I had the lower panel & speaker out?

Remove the sunroof, clean out the gutter and you should see the drain holes. Giving a quick wipe may only force more dust/dirt down it. One I did was plugged with dust, I thought I'd cleared it only to find a few weeks later a leak into the footwell. The drains go down each side of the windscreen with several joints, it only needs one of those to bung up and the water finds a new route out.
I used a flexible curtain wire (not sure if you have those down under, basically a long spring coated in plastic). The exit points are rubber drain pipes underneath. May be worth doing the other roof drains if you find that this is the problem?

Thanks for that, Clive. I'll have a look at it on the weekend.

Update : I took the van to a windscreen place and we did some tests.

The sun/moon roof drains were checked first, no leaks inside with all water dripping out underneath on the outside where it should be
Interestingly enough, when the middle roof was tested, water came out from both underneath of the middle of the car and the rear, so it appears as though there are 2 drain pipes per side for the middle roof. Not sure if the rear moonroof drains are connected to the same pipe as the centre ones.

Then water was run all over the window and eventually a bit of a leak was detected.

The van is going to go back to have the window taken out and the surrounds inspected for possible sources of the leak. I'm hoping that's it's just a perished rubber seal rather than a major rust issue.

The leaks to date only appear to come when the van is parked.

Finally found the source of the leak, it's coming from a drain under the windscreen rubber at the base of the window on the driver's side. The drain pipe appears to be missing. The drain hole is to be plugged up and the window rubbers reinstalled.

Window didn't need to come out in the end.

I'm not sure if Fiona ever found out the source of her leak.