Beretta.net

soooooooooooooooooooooooooo......

i went to pick up my car this morning. all was good, jumped in and drove off. i proceeded over a speed bump and heard.......chang a chang tang! so i jump out and take a look. the guys at the shop failed to put the passenger side fender well shroud back in place after they put the cooler hose back on. so i drive a football fields distance back to the shop and left it for them to fix. i have know the folks for a while and they were cool about it, explained they have a new douche in the garage. i left it for the rest of the day and told the guy to just lock it up and i would pick it up after hours. which i did.

NOW.....i started digging around for my keys and they were under the drivers side floor mat as was a huge water spot roughly the size of the mat. it was just under the mat, not any where close to the speakers or under the seat. the keys had a paper tag with my name etc on it and it fell apart when i picked it up.

this weekend i cleaned the engine bay at the car wash. i also started to remove the cowl under the windshield wipers but i had to stop b/c of weather. i did get the pegs back in before the rain started though.

do i have a leak or did some one spill water in my car? if its a leak where do i start looking?

very common on the beretta, surprised that you have not heard or read about it yet. the seam sealer begins to crack on the firewall area beneath the windshield, under the wiper cowl, you need to pull the wiper cowl and scrap away all the old and cracked caulking, and any rust spots, usually in the corners, and paint them up and usually windshield urethane is best to seal it all back up. just had a new windshield put in mine, and had them seal it up after i scraped and painted up a spot in the very passenger side corner, near the fresh air vent. clean all leaves and dirt out while you are there.

would that cause the water to be directly under the mat and no where else?

themadness wrote:would that cause the water to be directly under the mat and no where else?

Gravity.....

i also need to mention that when i cleaned the engine bay i also sprayed under it.

wouldnt it be wet closer to the firewall if the cowl area was leaking?

Mines leaking too after the hurricane this weekend. Pic of wiper cowls? Im gonna try n redo it this weekend

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scd88ga wrote:

themadness wrote:would that cause the water to be directly under the mat and no where else?

Gravity.....

Muhahahah

And I would about bet that if you were to pull back the carpet, the underlayment/padding would be even more soaked. When mine reached its worst, I had water on just the driver's side front and rear wells, and the passenger rear well. I still have a small leak unfortunately, but it only shows up with a really good soaking rain. Most of the time its not an issue. And its only on the drivers front side.

So a good chance its coming from the wiper cowls? They under the hood? Lol im a more visual guy as ace has been helping me out

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The wiper cowl area doesn't really do anything to prevent water from getting in, as it has holes in it obviously. But if you remove the wipers, then the 2 cowl pieces, you can then take a look inside the area where your wiper motor arms are, etc. In here are drain paths for water to go, and seams that should be sealed up. Some of these dry out and crack, so they start to let water into the car.

Also there are issues with the air vent under the passenger cowl. The older beretta's had a metal panel over them, the newer beretta's lost the metal panel and the outer plastic panel instead got a piece of sealant put between the top edge of it and where it met the windshield to accomplish the same task. But again, the sealant lets go, and water then gets into the air vent.

Besides all that, there are two pockets, one on each side (behind the hood hinges) where wires and that go into the firewall. Again the sealant gives way and water leaks in.

Then on the flat front of the firewall there are a couple of locations (driver's side around the brake booster section) where water gets in as it travels out of the cowl and down the firewall.

Lastly, the bottom seam where the firewall meets the floorpan also can crack/rust, allowing water to enter at that seam. This one is a bitch to fix, you about have to pull the carpet and the engine/transmission out to get at it properly.

Simple rule. Do not use silicone. This will actually promote the formation of rust and worsen the problem. Many have used roofing sealant (tar-like) rather than silicone. If someone was restoring a vehicle and fixing it properly, they would use body seam sealant made for this purpose.

another possibility is each of the floor pan drainage holes... in my 95, they were removable 'caps', that most have since rotted out. they are directly in the floor boards, and an oval shape about 3" by 2". i will be fiberglassing the missing ones on mine. also missing the large one in my spare tire well!

Visuals? We have visuals.

http://www.beretta.net/?page_id=54

better visuals...

Seams pictured are the ones that NEED to be re-sealed to protect from firewall rot, and wet carpet.

Also make sure you are getting a GOOD seal on your fresh air vent for the HVAC system, that will cause a lot of leaks as well and SEEM like it's coming from the firewall.

http://www.beretta.net/forum/viewtopic. ... 818#p50818

Leaks come from the cowl area or the firewall almost always. I resealed the cowl with my 95 and the SOB still leaked. I found when I pulled the motor the sealant around the brake booster was shot. So when I built my 91 I redid everything. I don't know how you could really fix it without pulling the engine/trans though.

The cowl is not a seam to in the cab its a seam to the stamped firewall piece of steel so if its seam leaks it will only leak from the cowl area into the engine bay down the firewall. It's the seams i did and the fresh air vent that leak the most.

Nice visuals!