I'm not even sure it rained recently.
I thought maybe the heater core broke and leaked, but the wetness does not smell like coolant.
What are common reasons for the front carpet to be SOAKED ?

 

If it isn't coolant, it is likely condensate from the AC evap core. There is a drain for it that is probably plugged

 

I have not turned on the AC in years.
Where is the drain?

 

The drain is in the engine compartment. Look on the passenger side just above the frame rail. Should be a tube poking thru the firewall. Might have a rubber elbow on it. If so, it should pull right off. If thats not the source of the leak it could be a leaking door seal, a leaking seam in the engine bay near the hood hinge, or the seal around the blower motor, or a hole in the A-pillar around the windshield (behind the seal), or the cowl vent (inside the cowl). Could even be the roof if you have a roof rack. Lots of places water can get in. The thing with water is that it could be getting in from the other side of the vehicle and running along a panel to the other side. Take a flashlight and shine it up into the dash and look for any signs of a leak. Check the floors from under the vehicle as well, just because.

 

I just went through this on my '99 XJ, you can see details in the "What did you do to your Cherokee today?" thread in the Cherokee Chat board. You might want to pull up the carpet to take a look at the floor. I had significant rust damage that had to be patched. (Better of course to weld in a new floorpan but that's above my pay grade.)

Apparently there are quite a few places where water can get in. I checked drains for the cowl air intake using a garden hose and that seemed to be OK, as did the cowl gasket, windshield gasket, and antenna mount. I wound up caulking the seam between fender and firewall, sealing the blower motor housing with RTV, and inserting 1/4" poly rope behind the door gasket for a better seal. So far it's gone through a hose test and a day of rain without leakage, but I have not yet driven the Jeep in wet weather for a full test.

 

When i bought my 93 i thought the heater core was leaking as well so i bypassed it only for my passenger floor to stay wet. I found the A/C drain hose and jammed a drain snake into it and it fixed my problem. (Though if the previous owners looked into fixing it instead of leaving it i wouldn't have had to replace my floor)

 

I just noticed front driver's carpets are also wet.
I have no idea where the water is coming from.
The upper front edge part of the carpets are dry.

 

We've had a day and a half of rain, sometimes quite heavy, and now I'm getting water inside again. I observed inside while it was raining and there appear to be two sources of water intrusion.

The smaller one is a trickle of water coming from under the dash around the area of the blower motor. I did seal around the blower housing under the hood as best as I could but it's tough to get in there to do a thorough job and there's still a leak coming from somewhere. I may well wind up having to cut an access hole in the cowl to do some sealing as in this video:


The bigger leak is coming from the bottom forward area of the door. The gasket appears to be intact and I did put 1/4" poly rope behind it for a better seal but there is still water coming from somewhere there. I'll have to pull the gasket and trim to see what's going on in there.

Very frustrating. For now until I have time to get into it again, since the carpet is already cut up and the floor patched and bedlined I'll just pull up the carpeting when it rains and dry up the water that gets onto the floor.

 

I wouldn't use any foam sprays as they don't tend to work correctly and when it starts to disintegrate it's a mess. The liquid silicone does look like it does a good job but what a mess, if you were committed to it I would get one of those really long transmission funnels and hopefully it would be long enough that you wouldn't have to drill a hole.

 

I'm not really sure what approach will be best, even after cutting an access hole it looks like it's going to be difficult to get sealer in where it needs to go. Definitely not one of the better aspects of the XJ's design. The worse leak though is the one getting through the area of the door seal. I found some ideas on that in the second post in this thread:

https://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f11/...e-floor-50495/

 

How do you know it's coming from the forward part of the front door?
I think I my have the same leak, since I don't think it's coming from under the dash.
Did you just remove the door panel and reseal the vapor barrier?

 

I climbed into the Jeep while heavy rain was coming down and could observe where the water was coming in - a very small trickle from the heater blower area under the dash, and a larger one from the door area, both leaving puddles sized according to the amount of water coming through. (Very small puddle under the dash, much larger one next to the door.)

 

On a very blustery day with a strong cross-wind blowing across the highway I noticed a draft coming in from my driver's door forward seal area. The seal was old and compressed. Replaced it and the draft disappeared. Maybe a worn out door seal is the problem.

 

Could be. I'm going to check that area first since it's the bigger leak and easiest to get to. Working outside I'm not too keen on cutting up the cowl with winter weather on the way. That will probably have to wait until spring.

 

I think my leak is not the cowl.
I think it may be coming through the top of the door.
I will have to test with a hose.