my truck has always leaked water. i couldn't figure out where. all i knew was whenever it rained or snowed the carpet was wet near the driver and passenger door. i figured it was the door seal. last night was in the truck when it was raining hard. water was dripping from somewhere up high behind the dash on the passenger side. i took the glovebox out and theres some big black box, the drip is higher than that. its dripping onto that box from somewhere. if i lay across the seat and stick my head under the dash the water is dripping from what looks like somewhere infront of the bottom of the windshield. how can i tell where its comming from without pulling the dash? i assume is either the windshield or maybe something under the cowel leaking? i've never had the cowel off on any vehicle i have no idea whats under there.

 

You will have to take the windshield molding off, side and lower and then remove the cowl at the base of the windshield.
This will allow you to see the two lower corners of the windshield. If you are lucky, the cowl will not be rusted and you can shoot plenty of sealer under the windshield corners and along the base to keep water from coming in...
Reassemble cowl and moldings without getting sticky, gooey sealer all over your hands and truck.
As for plan B if you have rust....
Sorry.. Don't have one... More sealer maybe? Don't know...

 

my 88' 350 always leaks on the driver's side floorboard (near the door)whenever it rains too--figured the same thing--windshield. I'll follow your advice and tear the cowl off and see what is under there--hope its not rust!

thanks!

 

My '96 does the same thing only you can see the streaks of water from the top of the windshield...poorly sealed job done by a cheapie "we come to you" service. BTW, I didn't think the cowls were a problem on these trucks, regarding rust, I mean. I really hope they're not anything like the '60's Mustangs...
Roger

 

I still have a small leak that was hard to find. If I pour water in the cowl you can see it run behind the driver side kick panel. It takes a decent amount of water before it leaks. I think that there is an issue the the lower side of the cowl. There was a ton of crap from trees etc in there that I cleaned out. I think after all the years it held in moisture it may have a small rust issue. I have seen our body style trucks with the front clip removed, and I have no idea how you could even get into the cowl on the side to seal it back up.

 

Hi all, I am having the same issue with the cab body leaking rain water. I didn't see any good solutions on here yet. ( I'll keep looking )

I have it torn apart right now. Cowl off. There is a seam at the bottom of the cowl that I am going to seal up with body sealer, the old sealer gave way.

I had the windshield replaced two days ago. So I took that out of the picture.

I was just wondering if anyone has found out where this leaking may be occurring ? Right now I am just shooting in the dark.

BTW, I am new to this forum. Looks like a good resource for info.

CJ

 

My truck was leaking at the rain gutters that are above the side windows. Check those and check the body line were the pillar meets up with the roof, the sealant can rot away a leave a hole.

 

Here's some photos of areas that can leak.

As my helper shows a screw hole in cowl area, good place to start rusting and leaking. Those screw holes(5 of them) held up the power windows/power locks wireing harness


Passanger side without heat/ac box


Inside firewall, the way cowel is made, water on level ground will flow from pass side over to drivers side, it can travel too! on my 89, the leak was just off photo and ran over on top of doghouse to gas pedel area.


What I did on my 89 was remove all that seam sealer(best as possable) and used bed liner paint and flooded the seam with it. Took care of my leaks. With a stripped out cab it was easy to find the leak which was on the other side of the truck! Had me going for a while till I got pissed and stripped the cab!

Most leaks are from the cowl area seams or from the roof line where the gutter lip is.

 

All my Fords have/had the leaky windsheild, back window, and rain gutters!

That's one reason why I like better Custom's than XLT's, the XLT's have all that plastic and carpet on the back, so you can't see water is comming in untill the corners rot out from the inside!

If any of my trucks were XLT's I'd defenentlly onces every year, remove the carpets, and floor mat to check for leaks and fix 'em, especially before winter!

 

Seems like that was an inherent design flaw, Ford didn't engineer away from. I've had numerous Ford trucks, and all but the 89 F 150 have leaked. A real headache to try and fix.

 

Update- Still working on the leaks. Windshield fixed. Cowl fixed.

I took all the plastic panels off today to try and get a better idea of where the water is coming from. Really wet behind the backseat. It doesn't seem like the window is leaking.

Could the cargo light be leaking ? Someone told me it was probably the rain gutters too. I do have cab lights on top but it seems unlikely that the water would run back there if they were leaking.

More to come.

 

My 89 has no cargo, nor roof lights, mine were defenetly the rain gutters.

Clean 'em up with a small steel wire brush to check them real good, and seal 'em up anyways.

 

i have rust under the cowl where the water drains. i found it 1 day when i removed the brake pedal bracket & looked up and saw that it was damp. i went to the outside & there was this black like foam that was hard like a rock and was the only thing covering the rust hole about the size of a persons fist. the factory for some reason or another put in there. the foam. it looks like they were covering the seam where the metal comes together. i will remove all of that foam from the cowl area to see if there is any more rust before it starts all over again. over time water had sat under that foam and rusted through the cowl over 13 yrs. that rust hole is just below the wiper arm that it bolts too. i removed the foam too reveal the rust hole and too let it dry out so i can cover the hole with fiberglass or tack weld in a piece of metal. right now i just have a rolled up t-shirt covering the hole. i am currently waiting for some products from the eastwood comp so i can remove the rust and protect what ever metal is left from the surrounding area on the top and under side. someone suggested to me to sand blast that area free of rust but too also use a wet/dry vac at the same time while blasting the area to catch all of the debris coming off. i went to a few body shops and they had told me of a thing called metal to metal glue that a lot shops use now days to cut down on labor time to get the job done faster and the glue does not get hard. the area that the rust is in is pretty tight and narrow. so looks like i'm going to try the glue method and get some sealer too stop the water leaks. i saw all of the products on the eastwood web site. now i just need a piece of metal about 4x7 and trim to fit and cross my fingers and pray to god that it works.

 

It's very hard to pinpoint some of these leaks, but along with many of you, had to tackle it. My two leaks were front and back. Here's what if found after hours of investigating. About 80% of the spot welded seams on the firewall and cowl area were toast, the caulking was dried out and vacuumed right up! Water was running down the drivers side cowl and going forward along the cab seam right next to the computer box. The corner right behind the Emergency brake was open and allowing lot's of water right through, soaking the drivers side completely. I cleaned the entire cowl to cab seam and any other doubtful area's and used silicone. Then I was thinking the rear window seal was gone getting a small leak there. Wrong! Window seal was fine when I pulled it, and found that the upper corner cab weld sealer (body putty) was cracked through to the inside flange. It seems as if any body filler cracks that appear allows water through those welded panels. So, I re-sealed the rain cutters that were cracking open, panel joints around the rear window, any other seams I could get to. Hope this gives more help to those who will follow us into repairs! Good luck....

 

is it possible that my 2006 econoline is leaking there ? I got water on my headliner and I can't figure it out!