...

 

you may want to check your top seals.. its a common culprit for water on the floor...

 

TTT.. i'm sure some more people know more about this than I do... The weather strip for the tops is on the Tops themselves....

 

When I first got my '79 I had puddles gathering on the passenger side floorboard. I know my T-top leaks a bit but no where near the amount of water I was ending up with. After looking at the same product I did some investigating and found that I had all sorts of leaves and gunk in the well behind where that filter goes. After I cleaned it out and put in the filter I've never had the problem.

The drain is between the firewall and the fender wall. It's about 1/2" wide and maybe 4" long. It goes straight down the fender to the ground. The water is building high enough to leak into the fresh air port that runs to the passenger side kick panel.

Take a pair of pliers and clean out the gunk but be careful not to pull up too much of the bonding that keeps the front end together. Hope this helps.

 

The most common place that 68-82 cars leak is in the cowl. Most of the leaks are where the fresh air vents are in the kick panels. The seals dry up and crack and water comes in.

To fix this the front end needs to be off of the car to do it right.
I have seen this method used to fix the problem. Go to Home Depot or Lowes and buy a quart bottle of liquid tar. Remove or bend back the screens in each corner and poor 1/2 a bottle down each side. The tar will find its way to the cracks where the water is entering and seals them.

This job is messy and the tar will run out the bottom of the fenders for awhile but it will seal the leaks.

 

You can also have your wife spray with garden hose while you are in the car and have a look around.

 

Josh: BOTH sides.

 

Ok.. this may seem like a dumb question but, How do i go about cleaning the cowl drains?

 

In addition to the above tips, here's some more info. For the debris, I used a vacuum and compressed air to loosen and remove the stuff packed in the lower corners of the cowl vent. Mine has no screens, so I just lowered the vacuum hose part way in the hole, then used a compressed air nozzle with a long 5/16 tubing extension to blast the gunk loose as the vacuum sucked it up. Worked great!

I had two sources of water entry after that. First, all the caulking and bond points were dried out and cracked which allowed water in. I used pliable bathroom style caulk that would not harden or melt in the extreme Nor Cal heat of summer. The other common source of water entry is a 3/8 bolt hole on each side of the "birdgage", under the top rear area of the fender, on the cowl. During assembly when the body center section was lowered onto the frame (without the front clip), these bolt holes were the forward attaching points for the hoist. After the body was mounted, the hoist was removed and a wad of caulking was jammed in the hole! Sooo, after years of heat, it dries up and falls out! Neat, huh? I have not fixed mine yet, and as far as I know, the only way to get to the bolt holes is remove the front clip, cut the fender extensions, or strip the dash out. Not an attractive senario, and I would talk to someone that has done it, or try and get a look at a car that is apart (like in a wrecking yard) before I attemped this repair.

This stuff is all covered in a book called "Wind noise and water leaks in 68-82 Corvettes" by Michael J. Davis. He also has a book called "A/C Strategies for the 68-82 Corvette".

Hans

 

Before I look into mine, how do the grates come off of there????

 

Try picking Michael J. Davis' book "Corvette Water Leak and Wind Noise Solutions" This book describes many solutions some serious work and some a back yard mechanic can handle. The vent door solution worked for me, there was much debris blocking the drain hole. Just reach in stir it up and flush with garden hose.

 

Hi joshwilson3...

I had water leaks like yours. Pulled the carpet to find both pans pitted badly. This is a common problem on sharks and something everyone has to do sooner or later.

Anyways, long story short I took out the windshield to find the area right below the window, where the windshield frame meets the body to be rusted. I'm going to use part of my floorpan kit from www.POR15.com to fix it. I stripped the entire windshield frame and t-top bar, wire brushed with an air grinder and covered with POR-15. I now believe it was possibly a bad lower windshield seal as I tore the entire dash out and don't see much rust elsewhere. BTW, the water will cause many problems that don't seem related. For example, the water rusted my speedometer assembly, then when it froze up, the cable busted off inside the assembly. I was able to fix it, but let's just say I wish the previous owner would have fixed this stuff.

Sorry for the ramble, let me know if I can help...

-Don