Can't find this leak....

Took the car to the car wash to get some of this northern grim off. After the cycle was over, I pushed on the clutch to start the car and water poured straight on my shoe, soaking it. Got back to the house and searched for about 2 hours on the site. I checked the moonroof drains and they were unobstructed. Poured water into the rain channel on the moonroof and water poured out the nipples like it should. So I've pretty much eliminated the moonroof.

Pulled the lower interior panel off and the fabric on the back side was soaked. I crawled on the floor and really didn't see anything that jumped out saying, "Here is the problem!!" It is ONLY on the drivers side. So, I guess it is time to lean on the experience of group. What do you think?

Info on the car:
2005 Jetta TDI GLS Wagon
5 sp
63,000 miles

Not sure what else I may need to give you guys about this. Oh, the windshield has never been removed, it is the original. TIA.

Pull wheel housing plastic liner, admire compost, clean it out, ran water where the wiper linkage is and make sure it drain unobstructed. Cut a notch on the plastic liner where it meets the wheel housing to let water drain out better.

BTW , don't take any offense but why so many people when they see a problem run to this website first so they can be told what's wrong with their car ? don't people have enginner insticts anymore ?

I had this happen a few weeks ago with my 99.5... I found exactly what you describe... Water down by the wipers had nowhere to go... ended up in the passenger's side of my car though... I cleaned out inside both wheel housings and all is well so far... There was a lot of crap in there...

Dimitri16V said:

Pull wheel housing plastic liner, admire compost, clean it out, ran water where the wiper linkage is and make sure it drain unobstructed. Cut a notch on the plastic liner where it meets the wheel housing to let water drain out better.

BTW , don't take any offense but why so many people when they see a problem run to this website first so they can be told what's wrong with their car ? don't people have enginner insticts anymore ?

Click to expand...

I figured that it might likely be the rain gutter for the wipers, but wanted additional feedback before I started tearing more things apart.

Oh, and no offense taken. I think of this site as an extension to the Bentley. If I was going to do something on the car I would consult the Bentley and if I thought there may be more insight to learn I'd post here. As an engineer I like to do the reseach up front before tearing into anything. I'm always reminded of the 7 P's:

Prior
Proper
Planning
Prevents
Piss
Poor
Performance

Thanks again.

It is still leaking!!!

Well, I took out the inner driver side fender well. I could not believe the amount of mud behind the fender well. I had at least 6" of mud behind the mud flaps. When the weather gets better I'll do the same on the passangers side if anything to clean it out.

The rain gutter has slightly clogged up with insulation. Must have another mice around. I cleaned out all of it, which was quite a bit, and dumped a gallon of water on the driver side of the windshield. Water still dripped into the drivers side floor board. I crawled under the dashboard and found the water was dripping from the wiring harness above and slightly to the left of the clutch pedal. Maybe the mouse chewed on more than just insulation.

Next best guess it to tear the wipers off and remove the cowl. Not feeling real good about this cause after reading everyones else experience I'll probably break that for sure.

Any ideas or suggestions. Thanks.

Found It!!!

Well, I was able to fix the leak. I took my time and almost made it unscathed. Here is a rough procedure detailing how I did it.

Rain Cowling Removal Procedure​

Part 1

• First lubricate the areas with silicon spray. I shot the wipe arm protective caps and along the bottom of the windshield where the rain cowling and windshield meet. Lubricating these areas will help with easier removal of the parts.
• Mark the windshield where the wipers touch in the off position. I used some tape and placed it just above where the wiper blade touched the windshield. This is needed for reassembly as you will find out the wiper arms can be adjusted almost infinitely.
• Remove the wiper arm protective caps.
• Loosen each nut the secures the wiper arm in place, but DO NOT take them off yet. You will need to carefully jar the wiper arms so they will come loose. This can be done by rocking the wiper arm back and forth with one hand and applying pressure under the wiper arm with the other. That is what I did and they both came off fine. Others have said to close the hood, lift the wiper arms up and knock them back and forth to free them. You will know when they come loose because they will be able to move easily about the mount location. Here is a picture of the wiper arm mount.

The wiper arm is just a cast part that is pressed down by the nut onto the wiper arm mount. So you can adjust the wiper arm any which way you would like, because there is no set number of adjustments.



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• Remove the rear rubber lip that runs across the rear top of the firewall. Just grab it and pull up. There are Styrofoam pieces on either side of the rubber lip that you will need to carefully pull upward to remove.
• Take the dust and pollen filter cover for the cabin filter off, by removing the 4 screws on the passengers side. Once the screws have been removed you can carefully pull the dust and pollen filter cover up and towards the front of the car.
• Unclip the trim on inner fender at both sides. They look like this.

Just start from the very tip and carefully press down. Once the tip is released you can carefully pull the trim towards the windshield and it should come free.

NOTE: The next couple of steps require you to be extremely careful and handle these parts with kit white gloves.

I had some BONDO putty knives laying around and found that the work exceptionally well to remove the rain cowling. Start on the dust pollen filter side and slide the putty knives between the windshield and rain cowling. These pictures may help.




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One by one I slid them between the cowling and windshield and the slowly lifted the cowling up from the windshield. Now take your hand and slide your fingers where the next pictures shows.






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User your fingers to help press up from underneath the cowling. I used 4 BONDO putty knives and they almost popped the cowling up by themselves without applying pressure from the back side. It was very cold the day I did this and after reading every ones notes about how brittle the cowling is, I used my wife’s hair dryer to soften up the plastic. Slowly slide the putty knives across the windshield to release the rest of the cowling. When it is released from the groove take your time to remove it the rest of the way. If anything this is the time you will break it, be careful. Here are the pictures from the passengers side to the drivers side with the cowling removed.





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Nice writeup. What make/model of camera did you use? Very nice close-up shots and exposure.

owr084 said:

Nice writeup. What make/model of camera did you use? Very nice close-up shots and exposure.

Click to expand...

The camera is an Olympus C-740 10x optical zoom 3.2 MP. It is now just over 4 years old and still works well, probably the biggest reason I haven't updated to a newer model. To make it easier for everyone to see I had to down size the images to 35% of their original size. Thanks for the complements on the write up. I hope that it will help someone out.

Do the pre PD Jettas have this same electrical black box?

I finally got my wipers off and was able to remove the cowl and get into the electrical connection box. Everything looked clean and dry but I removed the cover and caulked it into place. The cowl drains are clear so I guess if I do have a leak it is not under here.
RichS your photos and text made the job go smoothly . Thank you.
Andrew

Thanks for the write-up. I'm chasing my own water leak, in the exact same area. I suspected that electrical cover but wanted a second opinion.

My drivers side wiper would not come off, we get alot of corrosion here. I ended up cutting the cowl, just to the lower left, where the drain holes are. Then I could slide the cowl out from under the wiper, remove the wiper transmission and put it in a vise to get a real puller on it. It took a tie rod separator to finally pop it loose.

Worth a Look..

To revisit an old thread...but we’ve been getting a lot of rain in So Cal this year. This is definitely welcomed. I’ve been chasing down a perplexing leak on the drivers side footwell and already checked the usual culprit...sun roof drains. I was still plagued by leaks in the same area though...drivers side footwell.

I came across this how-to, and sealed the area around the black box with RTV silicone. So far, so good....no leaks.

Thanks for the direction...

Anyone know what to press on the connector clip to release it? I cannot get them disconnected to completely take the black box cover off.

Thanks,

Robert