2000 ford ranger
2.5 2wd

been having a little problem whenever it rains, the carpet on the passanger side gets soaked through and i'm not really sure where the leak is coming from. the only part of the floor that gets wet is the flat part where the passanger would put their feet, but the parts that slope up towards the dash and towards the middle of the cab stay dry. i've pulled up this part of the carpet, and the rubber grommets are intact and in good shape, and there is no rust or anything on the floorboard. from searching here it seems people have had similar problems, one thing being a leak into the seals around the third brake light above the rear window.

a couple things i should mention is that the air conditioning condenser has been broken for about two years, so could water get blocked up and leak in? since its winter here in PA i haven't used the air con since last summer though. i'm not really sure how long the leak has been happening since i've always kept a floormat over that spot, and the carpet drys in a few days anyway. another thing i should mention is that the weather stripping at the bottom of the window on the drivers side door is not perfectly tight and tends to come out of place when the door is closed hard. this has been happening since i got the truck almost three years ago and a new piece was just put in a month ago (the leak had been occuring before the new piece was installed) when the truck was hit and went in for body work. possibly a drain routing to passanger floor? i should add that i'm sure it's not coolant, it has no odor and feels like water.

might be a good idea to pull up the whole carpet on passanger's side and sit in the cab during the next storm, but any help so i know what to look for would be great. sorry for the long writing.

 

Check BEHIND the passenger seat. If it's wet there, then the water is probably coming in past the seal that's around the third brake light on top of the cab. Seal it with some grease.

 

slidingdelta,
I have a '02 with the same problem. 1st - run water in the fresh air intake
with a hose, and get in the truck and see if thats it. 2nd - run water over the windshield if you don't find anything on the 1st test. I found mine when I ran water in the fresh air intake. I live in a wooded area and somekind of small tree stuff must be getting down in the drain area in the fender area and plugging the "fender drain".
That area can't be gotten to very well(that I know of) so I drilled a hole, under the hood,
above the blower assembly. I inserted a 1/4 copper tube, bent around and down toward where I suppose the drain is and blow out with high pressure air. That cured my problem for 2 or 3 months but I found the carpet (passenger side) a little wet yesterday after a very heavy rain, so I guess I didn't get all the junk out the 1st time.
I don't know why the "cawling drain" into the fender area, on the passenger side, is so restrictive on these trucks but it is. I would like to see that area with the fender off.
Before the first "blow-out" with air, the water leak, on the passenger side, had gradually gotten worse.

 

You could lay a dry towel or shop rag on the 'shelf' behind the seat. If you do it with several pieces that are not touching, you could eliminate those areas that stay dry, or the back window if they all stay dry.
The under cowl drain could be plugged as suggested. It is pretty small, and I can testify that mine has a 'flap' held in place by 'christmas tree' plastic nails, that moves out of the way to let the H2O drain out. If you remove the top fender bolts under the hood, and the top bolt accessible from the rear by opening the door, you can swing the top of the fender away from the truck enough to see the drain. You can remove the flap and then run a bunch of H2O through the plenum intake to flush out any stuff.
Take a look at the underside of the cowl, where the antenna cable comes through. I had a leak there for years that kept the passenger carpet soggy. There are two pieces of sheetmetal sandwiched together by tack welds that stand up vertically. If the sealant is left off, water can dribble in there.
tom

 

forgot to mention that the carpet behind the seat is dry, the only wet part is the flat part where the passenger puts their feet. it's dry under the passanger seat too.

 

just spent about 10 or 15 minutes hosing water into the windshield cowl, and that failed to get the carpet wet. so i tried spraying right onto the windshield for about the same amount of time and that didn't get the carpet wet either.

 

i'll be sure to try that and look behind the fender this weekend when i have the chance.

regarding the underside of the cowl if i understood correctly i lowered the glove box and saw where the antenna was running past but did not see the two pieces of sheetmetal standing vertically. but otherwise there was no water in this spot even after draining water into the windshield cowl.

and just to clarify so i have my terminology correct, the part i hosed water into was the series of holes at the base of the windshield where it meets the hood.

thanks everyone for the suggestions, this is a tough one. any more ideas please let me know.

 

You really need to pull back the carpet and check anything that passes through the firewall like the heater hoses. Could be a bad gromet. Water will travel along a hose/cable through the firewall and then transfer to the floorboard as it contacts the sound matte or padding under the carpet. The carpet in that area will be dry. Water will then travel to the lowest point in the floorboard and pool. Corrected the same issue with my Mustang last summer. Mine was the driver side and the hood release cable. Sealed it with silicone.

 

I noticed one day on mine that ther was a drip on the pass side that seemed to come from out of the weatherstrip around the front of the door. I saw it at an intersection and didn't have much time to look close, but later I looked around the door and the rubber seal looks just fine.

 

Glass shops are great at finding leaks
2008 ranger passenger floor leak coming from bottom of fuse plastic foot shield.

Below heater box in the eng compartment is a bundle of wires going through the fire wall. Where they come out in the cab the wires split, you will find that the wires are dry coming through the fire wall, but are wet where they split, thus the water is running inside the bundle of wires and dripping on the floor. I have not fixed it yet, may require pulling the fender liner to find where the wire bundle is coming from in the eng compartment and a little silocone will fix it.

Mold smell in truck/car
Air conditioning is conditioned air, that means hot air or cold air, an evapoator drys the air by removing water i.e puddle of water under the vehicule with AC selected. In some cases if you select the recirculation mode on your heater controls the air bypasses the evaporator and mold grows on the evaporator causing a nasty smell. Cure run the AC in any outside air source modes (not recirculation mode) it took about 3 months to kill the mold and the smell was gone. running the AC in the winter will stop all of the windows being fogged and keeps the AC seal from getting hard and leaking. AC will remove all the moisture from the vehicule cab
Ted