There was water in the front passenger footwell. The carpet was wet when I got the car and the Puspakom inspection had mentioned some rust in the floorpan of The Tank. I had the carpet dried out with a wet/dry vacuum when I got the car washed one day and I then realised the aircon was the cause of the contstant drip. I took to driving with a towel stuffed up the side of the centre console and every time I parked, I would have to wring this towel dry. And sometimes it really was very sodden.
I finally decided to have a good look at the leak and found two things - condensation around an insulated pipe leading to or from the colling coil was the source of the leak, and when I peeled back the carpet, I also found a thumb-sized hole in the floorboard of the car.
When life hands you lemons, make lemonade they say. When life hands you a dripping pipe and a hole in the floor, make a drip tray.
And so I did… I cut a 1.5l PET bottle in half, leaving the cap on. In that I cut a small hole through which I fit one end of a length of half-inch garden hose. I didn’t have any silicone on me so I sealed this connection with liquid glue from a glue gun. The hose had been pushed in about an inch or so and I used duct tape to add some strength to the connection and also to channel water dripping into the bottle directly into the hose rather than the base of the cap. If I had silicone on me I could have avoided this step.
The open half of the PET bottle/drip tray was then wrapped around the kink in the pipe so as to collect every drop of condensation. The other end of the hose was then simply stuck through the hole in the floor!
I pushed back the carpet around the whole assembly, and replaced the side panel and voila! I’d stopped the leak. As I write this about a month later, the passenger footwell remains dry so I’m chuffed. The aircon is not the best on a hot day so when I have some spare cash and time, I’ll get it all looked at properly. In the meantime, I’m very happy with the hole in the floor doubling up as an exit point for water.
At least until I have to drive through a flood when the gaps in that hole may prove to be an unplesant ingress point instead. Ah well.
I finally decided to have a good look at the leak and found two things - condensation around an insulated pipe leading to or from the colling coil was the source of the leak, and when I peeled back the carpet, I also found a thumb-sized hole in the floorboard of the car.
When life hands you lemons, make lemonade they say. When life hands you a dripping pipe and a hole in the floor, make a drip tray.
And so I did… I cut a 1.5l PET bottle in half, leaving the cap on. In that I cut a small hole through which I fit one end of a length of half-inch garden hose. I didn’t have any silicone on me so I sealed this connection with liquid glue from a glue gun. The hose had been pushed in about an inch or so and I used duct tape to add some strength to the connection and also to channel water dripping into the bottle directly into the hose rather than the base of the cap. If I had silicone on me I could have avoided this step.
The open half of the PET bottle/drip tray was then wrapped around the kink in the pipe so as to collect every drop of condensation. The other end of the hose was then simply stuck through the hole in the floor!
I pushed back the carpet around the whole assembly, and replaced the side panel and voila! I’d stopped the leak. As I write this about a month later, the passenger footwell remains dry so I’m chuffed. The aircon is not the best on a hot day so when I have some spare cash and time, I’ll get it all looked at properly. In the meantime, I’m very happy with the hole in the floor doubling up as an exit point for water.
At least until I have to drive through a flood when the gaps in that hole may prove to be an unplesant ingress point instead. Ah well.
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