Passenger floor board soaked
 

We had some heavy rains on Friday this week. When I was cleaning the Cherokee on Sunday I noticed my passenger side floor board carpet is soaked. I have high sided rubber floor mats so I could barely see the carpet was discolored from the water. I pulled the mat out and it was really bad. I found a pea sized hole in the top of my drip rail right above the passenger door. Would this cause water to run down to my floor? Either way I will fix the hole, If that couldn't be the problem where else should I look?

Sometimes water on the passenger side floorboard is a sign of a problems with the heater core. Given the heavy rain though, hope it’s just a leak.

I'd be concerned for a leak in the windshield which runs down to the floorboard or a leak around the blower motor which does the same.
Wranglers have an hole in floorboard for water release. That is something to consider on an older car. You can buy a plug for it at Ace Hardware. Unplug when you need to dry (after a rain).

How far up the carpet into the footwell is the carpet wet?
Is the headliner wet?
If the hole is the problem and I had to guess the water is coming down the A Pillar and coming out under the fuse box. '96's do have the fuse box in the footwell like an '00 right?
If so thinking the carpet would be wet just in the flatter part. Maybe ruling out the cowl.
If this were me I would wet vac it dry, cover the hole with some duct tape, watch out for the paint though, and put a hose right there and see what happens.
If it stays dry try other areas to hopefully rule them out. Starting low like at the cowl and working your way up.

Just the flat part of the floor is soaked as far as I could tell. I'm gonna pull the carpet up and I'll try the duct tape and run a hose over the hole and on the windshield and see what happens.

Do you have a factory roof rack? Sometimes on mine if I park at an angle, water on the roof flows to the downhill side and during heavy rains it can pool up along the rack hold-down, and then leak inside.. Its not really well sealed at that point, at least not on mine. Then the water can drip onto the floor or flows down the A-pillar. But could also be windshield as others have indicated. It could appear to be the windshield but still be coming into a hole on the roof. The metal up there that makes up the upper support structure ....the parts above the headliner you can't see, are channeled and if water leaks into that area, it can flow across to (and down to) another area, which makes tracking down a leak harder. You might cover the roof with a tarp during another rain storm and see if water still leaked ..to help isolate the leak.

Another thing to look at is if your vehicle has the rubber strip behind the hood (at the cowl). If water gets down there it could leak onto your heater region and perhaps into your cabin if the sealing isn't as good as it once was.

Things to look for.

I do have the factory roof rack. My jeep was parked at work and we have a nice flat parking lot. It makes sense that the water could run down the A pillar to the floor. I'm going to try and diagnose this today when I get home.

I have a 98 that had a leak into the passenger side footwell. In my case, it turned out to be the foam gasket between the heaterbox and the engine compartment. Water would run/drip down the firewall and hit that foam and drip into the footwell. It would only do it in heavy rains. I used some caulking material and waterproof tape to make a barrier. I didn't want to mess with taking the dash out to replace that gasket.

The cowl cabin air intake has some gasket that gets worn out and will fill up with water and drip down onto the floorboard. Mine does this, especially when parked facing uphill. Look up jeep cherokee cabin air intake water leak and there are some ways to fix it. Good luck.

I'd also make sure that the floor pan is OK just to be thorough.

I figured out that the water is leaking in through the hole and running down the a-pillar. I temporarily put a small piece of duct tape over it until I can fix it this weekend. Thanks for all the help!

AH HA!

The hole on the drip rail? My 96 leaks water in around the fuse box on the driver's side but I still can't find where it comes in on the passenger side, seems to be somewhere on the firewall.