8vette8

My '88 coupe, in great shape with 50k miles, sat in the long rain yesterday. I know that after a lot of rain I get some water on top of the sills but it's minimum. The car was always garaged until I got it a few years ago.
Today I checked and the rug on the floor in front of the passenger seat was SOAKED with water. I used a sponge and wrung it out a couple dozen times. I was tempted to drill a couple holes in the floor to drain out the water. Completely dry on the driver side.
The weatherstripping looks perfect, in great shape. I can't figure out where all that rain water is getting in.
Any tips?

Silver96ce

Check the cowl vent drains. I had the same problem and the passenger side was clogged. IIRC, there should be 3 drains - on the battery side, near the windshield wiper motor, and on the passenger side. On the 96, the drains are rubber teats with a slit on the bottom. I had to remove the lower body panel on the driver and passenger side to get access to clean them out.

8vette8

I see the cowl vent openings, but can't figure out where the cowl vent drains are. I have the factory manuals but can't find anything in the manuals about the cowl vent drains. Am I to look inside the car, up under the dash? Or in the engine compartment? Can't find any photos. Any help to point me in the right direction would be appreciated.

Silver96ce

Sorry to answer so late - just got home. Open the hood. You have three (there could be four drains - read below) drains, one on each side of the cowl and toward the center of the cowl. Take the battery access body panel (below the hood in front of the drivers door) off on the drivers side and you'll see a rubber tube coming off the cowl vent behind the battery. The end is a slit and is probably filled with garbage and dirt. After you clean that out, take the body panel off on the passenger side and you'll see a larger rubber hose coming off the blower enclosure, clean that. The third is near the wiper motor and I just remembered there may be one toward the passenger side like the one by the wiper motor. I would have to go outside and check but they should be easy to track down. Good luck.

8vette8

Thanks. Sounds so easy. Take off the little body panel on the passenger side. Three screws on the front edge, easy. Bolt on the top back end, easy. Now it looks like there's one more bolt, on the bottom rear corner, coming up from the bottom into that panel edge. But, the bolt head is covered up by the lower long rocker panel cover running along the lower side, below the door. Does that whole long narrow panel have to come off just to get at that one lower bolt still holding the side panel on? I'm trying to figure out how to get that bolt/screw out. I have the factory manuals but they're no help, don't show all this stuff. Geez.

Silver96ce

You just have to loosen the bolt - the bottom of the body panel has a "u" shaped tab that slides over the bolt. I think it is a 10mm. Use the thinnest 10mm open end wrench you can find (gearwrench aren't too bad or grind the sides of a cheap one), slide it between the body panel and lower rocker panel molding and slowly loosen the bolt until the panel will slide off. Remember don't remove the bolt just loosen it. Don't worry, once you get it off the first time, it will make sense.

8vette8

Some stuff is easy when you get good advice on how to do it. Thin 10mm wrench loosens bottom bolt on side panel, then it's easy to get off. Saw big drain tube with slit at bottom, it was completely blocked off with leaves/dirt/stuff. Cleaned it out, trimmed it a bit on bottom so it wouldn't clog up so easy. Now want some more rain to make sure that it solved the problem. Thanks for the advice.