My 1993 windscreen seal is leaving puddles in the footwells. In fact, as a result it fried the LH seat module. This is an urgent problem as I don't have garage space for it.

The VIN is 186099 and I see that BEC9535 is specified for VINs 179737-186966 but that it is no longer available. I have found a NOS BEC9535 seal for sale but can't be sure about the condition of the rubber after sitting on a shelf for so many years. The 1993-1996 seal is available so I'm wondering if anyone has had any experience with this and maybe modifications can be made to make it work? Or perhaps I'm better off chancing it with the NOS seal.

 

EcbJag,

If you've got water in the footwell, it won't be (just) the outer seal IMO. The facelift cars have bonded windscreens and that outer seal is not much more than decorative / additional sealing.

It's much more likely that the windscreen bonding is failing or that you now have corrosion in the windscreen flange. You really need to VERY CAREFULLY remove the windscreen chromes and see what is the situation in the lower corners.

Of course, you may be lucky and it's a blocked aircon drain tubes, which then causes aircon condensation to puddle in the footwells That's usually an easy one to solve.

Good luck

Paul

 

Also double check your wiper valance drains. They could be clogged and you could have standing water in the wiper motor cavity. I know when i was getting water in the footwells of my 93 convertible, it was actually coming from the rear window seal. Smh

 

I own a 93 XJS coupe.. My issue was the drain tubes behind the center console that are under the dash. There are 2 tubes about the size of a straw. A coat hanger pushing up toward the windscreen will clear the drain.. These tubes are enclosed in padding. You have to remove the side skirts on each side and probe for the tubes. These tubes have a joint coupler than is used to separate the upper and lower sections. This is a simple repair, ibut a bit physical to get to them.

 

Thanks for the tips guys. Are we sure that all facelift cars have bonded windscreens? Perhaps this was the change made at VIN 186967? Looking at my seal the rubber is on both sides of the glass and certainly doesn't look like a bonded seal except for the enamel frits around the borders. This is a California car and luckily there isn't a speck of rust or corrosion anywhere. There is a pretty large gap at the bottom of the seal which leads me to believe that it has shrunk.

We have been getting a ton of rain the past couple weeks and each morning I find water dripping from between the dashboard and the lower dash cover, left of the steering column; almost a straight shot downward from the corner of the seal. I wasn't too concerned about a few drips until one morning I realized there was 4-5 centimeters of standing water in the driver's footwell. Nevertheless I'm going to check those drain tubes today. I had the wiper assembly out just a few days ago and checked the drains in the cavity.

I ordered the NLA NOS seal this morning. At $60 it wasn't a huge gamble. But I'm nervous about finding a glass shop that I trust to install it. Perhaps I should remove the chrome and interior trim myself to make the job simpler for them. If anyone can recommend a trusted shop in the Bay Area I'm all ears.

 

Your windscreen is definitely a bonded screen. As an earlier poster advised the outside rubber is merely a decorative seal between the SS trim and the glass edge. The bond is between the inside surface of the glass and the body/metal flange of the windscreen opening. The rubber you see from inside is known as the mastic retention dam which prevents the bonding material from spreading past the edge of the flange of the windscreen opening.

I have just dealt with water leaks caused by the dreaded scuttle rot at the bottom left and right corners of the screen on my 1992 facelift coupe so I am familiar with all the details of the windscreen sealing and surrounding SS trim. I'm afraid you are likely to have rust problems under the windscreen SS trim.



This is what I found! All looked OK apart from some mild paint bubbling and of course the problem of water dripping down on my knee into the divers and passenger side footwell. You can see the flange here to which the screen is bonded. Facelift cars are much more prone to this problem. I have read in previous posts that the corrosion is a result of either (i) scratching of the paint by the device used to locate the screen when fitted in the factory or (ii) scratching of the paint finish when replacing a broken screen. Of course if you look at the design water runs down behind the A post SS trims and has nowhere to go other than sit in the corners... not a great design!

It's quite a job sorting this out.. Windscreen trims off (VERY carefully as you can twist and ruin them very easily), wings off, clean it all up, welding, paint, screen, seals and trims back on.
I actually replaced the outside seal with this one I found on Amazon and it was a better fit than the original;
Here is how it looks after all the work;

 

Wow, thanks for the explanation and the photos, they really cleared things up. Your work speaks for itself but the final result is beautiful. I suppose the only way to know the condition of that flange is to remove the glass. I'll remove all interior and exterior trim around the windscreen and have a shop remove the glass for inspection next.

 

EcbJag,

You won't need to remove the glass to assess the situation. VERY carefully take off the chromes and that infill seal and youll see the state of the flange. If you do get the glass removed, try and get them to carefully look after the original mastic dam, as they are NLA.

The core reason for failure is that the mastic shrinks and gaps appear, allowing water ingress and corrosion in the flange. This is exacerbated on Coupes when the behind-the-chrome drain blocks and water sits in there.

If you've got ANY rust bubble on the scuttle edge by the chrome, then you have a problem. Even if you havent got any bubbles, it can still be behind the chrome. Catch it early and it wont have gone into bulkhead or A-post. And if you're lucky, its the aircon drain tubes anyway! So crawl underneath or remove the interior cheek panels and check those first.

Cheers

Paul

 

Ecbjag,

I hope you find some blocked AC drains and that is the cause of your problem..
As Paul says, no need to remove the glass, just the external rubber seal and the SS A post trims. To get these off you need to remove the front door seals and the aluminum track that holds them along the inside of the door opening along the roof line and A pillar, as they are held in between the track and the body. The seal track is item 2 in the sketch below and held in by a few self tappers. Be careful with the seal track as it is aluminum and prone to bending easily.

 

Do not kid yourself. There is no way the aircon drains can give 5cm in the footwell.

 

Hi Paul,
As far I am aware there are no drains at the bottom corners of the windscreen flange behind the bottom of the stainless steel A post trims. The only drains are those in the windscreen wiper plenum. Hence the problem with the water just sitting there and things rusting away

 

Chris,

On the Coupe there is a channel that runs behind the chrome. You can see the entry slot from the top corner of the roof. The water then ultimately exits enters into the front corner of the A-post / bulkhead.

Naturally with such a narrow opening at the top corner of teh roof, its is very easy for sediment to enter and then block the drain channel. The whole of that channel down the sides of the windscreens then sits full of water which will find any gaps, weakness or paint erosion of the channel and just sit and rot out the flange as well as leak into the car.

The way to test it is to pour water down the channel at the top roof corner and check it exits normally. If not, poke some plastic-coated wire or similar all the way down the channel to clear out the blockage.

Hope that makes sense.

Paul

 

Better still, block up the entrance in the gutter corner with mastic.

 

Hi Paul,

Yes I see what you mean.

 

Some previously held assumptions were not adding up about this whole ordeal, so over the weekend I started with a clean slate and devised a plan. I removed the front seats, the lower dash panels, under-seat modules, and all carpet and insulation until the whole of the floor was bare sheet metal. The carpet and insulation pieces ranged from slightly damp to sopping wet so I hung them all to dry inside. I then covered the floor pans with newspaper, and parked the car out in the rain overnight. (I have since secured a temporary covered spot for the car by shuffling vehicles around.)

What I found in the morning was two puddles behind the front seats, but all the paper forward of the rear mounts for the front seats was bone dry. Likewise, not a trace of water anywhere under the dashboard. I then dried everything off, replaced the saturated pieces of paper with dry ones and tested all the seals with a garden hose under high pressure. And, water is creeping past the door glass and running down the B pillars, dripping onto the backseat lower cushion, then running onto the floor. The car is parked on a slight incline so this explains why it took a few days of rain to pool up behind the driver's seat before the carpets were saturated and it all came sloshing forward.

Where the water droplets I previously saw on the underside of the dash came from I have no idea- perhaps condensation. But I drowned the window seal with water from the hose from all angles for a good 10 minutes and not a trace of moisture was detectable under the dash or on the newspaper underneath it. All my attention had been directed to the wrong place thanks to those water droplets. Now knowing that I need new door frame seals I have a new conundrum. BEC24882 and BEC24883 are specified online as the correct seals for my '93 coupe but it lists the year range as 1989-1996. This doesn't make sense as the pillarless windows were introduced with the facelift in 1992. So I'll have to get on the phone tomorrow just to double check before I order.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this thread with very helpful input. Amongst all the other complications this storm system has brought to our lives, this has been a huge pain in the ****. It would seem the water droplets on the lower dash panel were a huge misdirect; their origins remain a mystery. Condensation is the running theory. But the carpets are dry, and the clever cat has coerced its way into a garage space for the time being.

 

Ecbjag,

That's a win in my book! I'd say that dealing with the door seals will definitely be cheaper and a lot less hassle than windscreen scuttle rust/rot.
I've a feeling that the two parts numbers BEC24882 and BEC24883 could be the left and right hand versions of the same seal.

 

EcbJag, I'm not sure where you got your info about the door seals being from 89-96. That's not from the Jaguar parts website, which is always the place to start. The facelift was introduced in 1991 and the door seal part numbers changed 4 times from thereon. The last part nuparts were BEC 24882 & 24883, and all the earlier ones supersede to these. Again the Jagyar parts website details this. Unfortunately they have been NLA for some years. You might find some NOS on eBay or similar if you're very lucky. Otherwise, trap very thin sheets of tissue paper all around that seal and see if you can find the weak spot. You may then be able to fettle the seal at that point, packing it out from behind or similar. Good luck Paul