Wet front passenger floor

[Supra469]

So this has been baffling me for some time now. I just noticed the front passenger floor to be wet, very wet. At first I thought someone's water bottle spilled, then I realized it's taking forever to dry. I decided to use paper towels to soak up some water but soon realized what I really needed was a cham-wow to deal with this.

Next I went and used those wet/dry vacs and decided to shampoo the carpet in efforts to clean it up. Today, 2 weeks later, it's still wet. So I decided to take a look under the carpet and behold......puddles. I popped the plugs to allow it to drain.

I felt around and nothing seems to be dripping? Where else do you think I should check??

[mark_vdh]

is it coolant or just water? has it been raining heavily?
if coolant then it would be leaking heater core
if water it would be leaking from the windscreen area or door seals

[Supra469]

Mark,

I think you may be on to something here. It seems like all of my coolant has leaked out and right now I have just water in there. I was planning on adding some Toyota Red coolant but now that I think about it, I think i'll try to replace the heater core.

Oh, and it has been raining allot but it's been dry the last 4-5 days and some days have been hot, but my carpet is still soaking wet....and I still do use the heater at nights whem I drive with the sunroof open.

Is my heater core visible in those pics I posted up?


Thanks.

[Dave's]

Could be something like a windshield leak. If it were summer and running the A/C, sometimes the drain gets pulled up from the hole through the floor and will soak the passenger side, but if you have anti-freeze in your coolant then a white paper towel used to soak it up should show the color and you should be able to smell it. If it's anti-freeze then you can bet it's the heater core or the hoses to it. Either way you'll probably have to remove the core. It should be in the plastic housing (plenum) behind the glove box. Some are easy while others are pure he**. Look at the firewall under the hood for the two heater hoses which go through it to the heater core. This will help locate it for certain.

[mark_vdh]

oh no...when toyota built the cressida they put the heater core in first and built everything around that
probably the hardest thing to replace in a cressida, good luck

[mark_vdh]

better idea, bypass the hoses that go the heater core, and see if still it still leaks

[Supra469]

Originally Posted by mark_vdh

better idea, bypass the hoses that go the heater core, and see if still it still leaks

That's what i'm planning to do next! Will keep everyone posted.

Originally Posted by mark_vdh

oh no...when toyota built the cressida they put the heater core in first and built everything around that
probably the hardest thing to replace in a cressida, good luck

Anyone have any instructions for doing this?

Originally Posted by Dave's

Could be something like a windshield leak. If it were summer and running the A/C, sometimes the drain gets pulled up from the hole through the floor and will soak the passenger side, but if you have anti-freeze in your coolant then a white paper towel used to soak it up should show the color and you should be able to smell it. If it's anti-freeze then you can bet it's the heater core or the hoses to it. Either way you'll probably have to remove the core. It should be in the plastic housing (plenum) behind the glove box. Some are easy while others are pure he**. Look at the firewall under the hood for the two heater hoses which go through it to the heater core. This will help locate it for certain.

Well, the A/C is not working (or charged up) cause I got the car last fall and it was already too cold to use so I left that for this upcoming summer. So no A/C at this time. Also don't see any evident of a windshield leak also/yet.

Since the coolant was replaced (not by me) with the Green stuff I was never really satisfied and wanted to replace it with the red stuff. So at one time I started to smell some funny stuff (lil coolant smell) but it quickly went away. Then one day i checked my over-flow bottle and saw that it was bone dry so I topped it up (with water anticipating a flush) and then checked the radiator and it too was dry. I just added wated as I was planning on taking this opportunity to now flush and refill with the Red. So I never notied the wet floor until much much later. Since my system is mostly water now there is no coolant smell in the cabin, just a very wet floor.

I plan to bypass the core to see what happens.

***************
What's the most common failure of the heater cores anyway?