Hello friendly and knowledgeable people of the forums!

I've just come back yesterday from a wonderful 1800km trip to the UK with my '91 XJ40. Apart from the aircon acting up and some clunks and rattles in the rear suspension it went very well! Just checked my fluids and surpringly enough I haven't lost a single drop of engine oil or any other fluids. Ironically enough I have in fact gained some fluid, water to be precise.
Yesterday on our way back through Belgium we encountered a shower so heavy the single wiper couldn't keep up and my front seat passenger reported 'is it normal to have wet feet?'.

I checked just now and my carpets and insulation were absolutely soaking, where did the water come from? As suspected the elbow tube above the accelerator pedal. I cleaned most water from the floor, removed the carpets to let everything dry and drained the elbow tube in a container.
Now the question is, where does the elbow go from and go to? The water I removed was all dirty with, what first looked like rust, but later actually turned out to be fragments of leaves. In the past I've removed the infamous duckbill and removed the plastic sheet under the windshield to clean everything under there, so there must be an area that sucks in air that I'm missing. I have no sunroof and the drain ports besides the tunnel seemed dirty, but nothing near clogged up.

I know this question has been discussed often as it is a known problem, but I couldn't find an exact answer to this one.


The light gray flexible elbow above the drain tube

Here's draining the elbow by removing the (of course) rusting metal clamp and sliding it of the plastic housing

The murky water that I drained from the elbow

Letting everything dry. Once. Again...

I'm talking about part number CBC59391 .

​​​​​Thanks for your time and intell once again!

-Douwe

 

Hi Douwe,

When you removed the duckbill and cleaned it, did you reinstall the duckbill? Many of us have found that it quickly clogs up again, so it's best to just leave it out.

I also recall that there is a foam seal around the heater core pipes that water can collect around and leak past into the passenger footwell.

Cheers,

Don

 

Hello Don! Thanks for the reply!
The duckbill is happily stored in it's own special little place in my house. You could call it a special shrine of.. darkness?

I'll check the foam seals around the heater core pipes, I reckon that's probably been discussed on a forum before?

My real question was, my bad for not making that so obvious, where does the flexible elbow pipe lead too and go to. One end connects to the aircon condenser (??) Above the transmission tunnel, that also has the two drain tubes running besides the tunnel. The other end goes way up into the dash above the brake paddle and I unfortunately can't quite seem to find where that connects to, due to a lack of space for my massive head.
Like the pictures describe, there's musky water with remains of leaves coming from that specific tube, which to me sounds like it's definitely a clogged up line/vent. The question is what area do I need to clean?
Alternatively, there's a big hole of rust in the firewall that doesn't only introduce water, but also dirt into the aircon intake vents.

Again, thanks for your reply. You do seem like someone that knows the '40 inside out!

Douwe

 

Could be one or both of your A/C drain tubes are blocked?
Condensate builds up quite rapidly in the evaporator which soon fills the blower housings sometimes resulting in gurgling noises as the fan dips into the pool of water ...but the more common result is wet feet as the water sloshes out and into the footwell.

If this is the case, clearing the drain tubes can be accomplished by rolling back the carpets, removing the short clear hose between the rubber fittings then blasting the upper end of the assembly with a shot of compressed air. Be prepared for a considerable amount of condensate to drain out of the climate control unit - best to have carpets out of the way and a container in place.
Personally, I use an extension hose in place of the short clear tube, bringing it out of the car so the water can drain safely away.

Larry

 

Hello Larry, thank you too for your input.
Today I went to check both drain tubes, I had already checked the one on the driver side, but I completely removed it and also removed the flexible gray hose I pictured earlier. I stuck my hand in and tried to wipe all the dirt down the drain tube. I had already removed all the water, so luckily everything was dry. There was quite some dirt though.
The passenger side was a bit more finnicky. Apparently someone had reported a leak in the past and they had decided to cure the 'wet-feet symptom' by glueing the carpet to the insulation. Ofcourse I slightly tore the carpet trying to remove it, but there's already been plenty damage done by the glueing and water. Great.. Now I'll also have to trace down a new insulation pad and parchment carpet...
I'll take a proper vacuum cleaner with a small nozzle to thoroughly suck all the dirt out, however, this still doesn't really explain why there's fragments of leaves in the system. Is something else clogged up as well that introduces dirt and leaves into the vent system?
​​​​​​​Douwe

 

The grey rectangular "hoses" are air ducts that connect the blower outputs to the climate control unit.

Larry

 

Another possible route for water ingress is the air intakes for the blower motor housings, which take in fresh air through the firewall. You might check your passenger side blower motor housing for signs of water dripping through the seam.