firewall cabin water leaks.

:
03.5 YLW MSP
I didn’t see a thread just for this so I figured I would post my findings on this.

NOTE: Keep in mind I have a water hose pointed directly in the wiper cowl on full blast... you will never see that much water even with going through a car wash.

My first leak was at the harness plug going into the cabin.. Silicone on that and all is good.
DSC_0271_zps9bf670d4.jpg


The next set of leaks are in the wiper cowl. First remove the wiper cowl as that’s where majority of my leaks were from but one. I still have yet one more to find and ill update that once I correct that issue.

The wiper cowl is held in my two screws and the wiper arms. First remove the caps off the wiper arms, unbolt the wiper arms (you will have to wiggle them off), remove the caps on each side of the wiper cowl and remove the two screws. Then the wiper cowl could come right off. Its held in by a few plastic clips.
DSC_0269_zps1b85708a.jpg



Here on the driver side you can see me spraying water in the wiper cowl.

DSC_0265_zpsc47d2718.jpg


I noticed a great deal of water coming in on my driver side floor board. I however it the water pool up as I currently don't have the carpet installed in my car and noticed the water swirling around these holes.

DSC_0259_zps943653ea.jpg


DSC_0258_zps2fd40d86.jpg


This is what the leak looked like on the inside on the driver side. The water was shooting down the sound deadending, and out where the bolt hole is and down onto the clutch switch
DSC_0255_zps50af62aa.jpg


I then cut the water off, dried the area the best I could and applied some silicone. This is on the driver side right around the gauge cluster

DSC_0261_zps3a99a963.jpg


next I cleaned out the drain hole in the cowl under the fender liner on both sides the car. Use something like a metal coat hanger to clear out the drainage ports.

DSC_0264_zpsdd66c08f.jpg


DSC_0266_zps4d4eefe7.jpg



This one was tricky for me to find....
DSC_0268_zps7cb3e159.jpg


I had to remove all the factory crap in the way that was covering the crack and go about a foot up in the dash to get it all visable. Then i cleaned it, scuffed it up the best i cound with 80 gritt, cleaned it, and applied seal-all/seam sealer from autozone.

 
Last edited:
what the ****? that's a s*** load of water

yeah, the water hose on full blast tends to do that and it pointing right at the holes doesn't tend to help. lol I didn't realise it was pointing at the holes when i took the pick. Thankfully I have no carpet in my car currently so it wasn't a big deal to clean up.
 
they appear to be the spot welds for the clutch pedal mounting, I had that issue also but drove to my panel beaters so he could mig weld the holes for a cheap price then undercoat and body color, problem gone
 
I have no leaks but need to check on these and silicone them up anyway. Spring project sub..........
 
Awesome write up! I have pretty much done everything you did plus drilled a couple holes in the floorboard to let the water not stand too long. I'm sure I have a cracked weld under the dash on the passenger side but have given up trying to get to it :( for the time being!
 
Awesome write up! I have pretty much done everything you did plus drilled a couple holes in the floorboard to let the water not stand too long. I'm sure I have a cracked weld under the dash on the passenger side but have given up trying to get to it :( for the time being!

i got a crack in the passengers side too, luckily its not too close to the ECU.
 
see my post above that was how I fixed it after removing wipers and plastic trim to get into the vent panel
 
That leak is on the opposite side of the car from the clutch... I was talking about the one on the passengerside area in the last pic.

don't forget mine is right hand drive but it appears to be where the cowl panel spot welds to brackets underneath so remove the trims and check all those spot welds.
 
don't forget mine is right hand drive but it appears to be where the cowl panel spot welds to brackets underneath so remove the trims and check all those spot welds.

good point, ill have to look into that again when i get time. I don't recall seeing those welds but then again i wasnt looking for them either.
 
Steath, there was a thread on this a few years back and a couple guys did fix the same issue. Mazda did a poor job on seam sealing some of these cars on the passenger side and there can be some leakage. Pull the plastic fender liner on your passenger side and spray the hose right at the same. You will probably get the same trickle that you have posted above. On some of the worst ones people were able to put a bright light in the passenger wheel well to help identify where the seam sealer needed repair. GL
 
Back