Thread: Defender footwell

Here is a link to the Land Rover Defender Water Ingress Manual. It is 35 pages of all the spots where your defender will leak from and how to fix some of them.

From what i have been told this can still apply for the new Puma's too. Not too the same extent though

Water Ingress Manual

The old Defender water in the footwell trick,
Use the search function and you will see a plethora of threads on this issue.
Have fun

I traced my footwell getting wet to strong westerly downpours!

I've found the best solution for water ingress on my defender is a good drainage system.

If you wait long enough, the water will make its own drain...

- Add some salt if you're getting impatient.

Water Ingress manual is good.

I have had a water leak int he footwell, due to

1 - The fake hinges one the windscreen, the rubber gasket under these is crap and lets water seep in through the bolts. Remove, refit with new gasket and a touch of sealant. Be careful easy to chip or take a big chunk of paint off when you undo them.

2 - the rubber driver door seal, where it kinks around near the windscreen hinges. The orginal seal kinked badly so funneled the water in, the replacement still leaked, but was seeping behind the seal. Some Butyl Mastic fixed that.

3 - The Crack in the Roof. Famous Land Rover issue, the crack between the two halves of the roof breaks, and lets water in. The sealant is butyl mastic, but very hard to get it to reseal reliably. Mine is solved by using a strip of 3m weather sealing tape on the outside.

4 - Crack in the gutter where it joins up near the windscreen above the A Pillar. This is the latest leak on mine - looks like the sealant has cracked and I now get water leaking in through the roof just above the driver's right knee. My tube of Butly Mastic has gone, so need to get some more.

To keep the rust worm at bay - I've sprayed the inside floors with Lanolin, and injected Inox into the bulkhead itself. I've also found a Kilo of Silica Gel under the passenger mats keeps the inside bone dry. A Kilo of Silica gel will absorb about 60% of it's weight in water, so I just pick it up occasionally and when it's over about 1.5 kilo's, you just bake it in the oven at 120C for a couple of hours to recharge it. I get about 3 months out of a Kilo before it needs recharging.

Air con drain pipe blocked. It's a bugga to get to, above the front of the gear box somewhere.

you can modify the AC to have an additional drain in a better place than the original (i believe the original drain is suited to the unit being mounted at a different angle and therefore there is always a pool of water sloshing about) there are posts on line about folk who have done this.