Hi all, had yet another wet filter following a motorway trip in heavy rain recently. I have the drain valve fitted but water still gets in.

Water has to be getting in another way. So today I removed the whole air inlet system. A bit tricky but not too difficult. Involves removing passenger side air vent, wheel arch liners, headlight and headlight support tray(this requires unbolting, but not removing, the passenger side end of the front bumper).

Discovered several things.

1) The inlet box behind the grill has "no" drain holes. Water may run back out of the opening when fairly full but if you park pointing down hill water will run down toward the air box. Mine now has several holes in bottom.

2) There is a join in the inlet pipe, just above the wheel, which is barely sealed at all. It now has a foam seal made from E profile draft excluder.

3) The strange flock covered pipework that enters the engine bay is made of a porous material. I could blow air through it and if you pour water on the outside it instantly gets wet on the inside. Maybe this is to allow the water that inevitably gets in as in 1 and 2 above to slowly drain away but at 70mph it's just going to be sucked straight through to filter.

4) The hard plastic piece that connects into the air box is made in two poorly fitting halves. It is loosely clipped together along it's length with fairly large gaps. This sits just behind the headlights so will invariably be soaked with water especially on a motorway run which will again be sucked in. Mine has now been sealed together and ty-wrapped.

5) The large oval rubber seal between the air box and the inlet pipe does not fill the gap. This is also directly behind the headlights so is soaked with water on a motorway run. Mine has now been packed out with some strimmer cord and seals nicely.

For a vehicle with off road aspirations this inlet is not even suitable for on road use. What a c**p design.

JGH99 Freelander 2 GS Stornoway Grey
Jan 2007 Bought 71,000 miles. Currently 149,300 miles.

Checked my Filter after being in heavy rail to find that there is not a filter fitted to my 2014 plate Freelander do I have to remove the box to install a rubber filter?

Will be replacing the filter as its very black yet the car supposed to of been serviced last month.

Can you edit the Poll to add the 2014 reg please.

Been looking for a suitable valve to fit is this one ok
https://www.screwfix.com/p/arctic-products..._container

Hi, I think your air box is a slightly different design to mine, but yes, air box will have to be removed.

Not too difficult. Worst part is loosening the large pipe clip on the outlet. I use a ratchet clamp similar to photo attached.

Not sure about the valve. Internal diameter on my drain hole is 27mm if my memory is correct. So it looks like it could be fitted. I know others on the forum have used similar. A quick search through this topic would probably help. Let me know if it works as it looks like a better solution than mine.

I just cut a circle out of an old inner tube and then cut a suitable sized hole in centre to go over the retaining clips.

Still think its a cr*p design as my post above.

Cheers, JGH99
 Freelander 2 GS Stornoway Grey
Jan 2007 Bought 71,000 miles. Currently 149,300 miles.

Just checked mine, hope I'm looking in the right place. 2008 Diesel model. In front of the battery, remove lid retained by four T25 torx screws, lift out air filter and look down to the bottom. There's a hole about 1" diameter, no valve. What should the valve look like? ----------
Tony S

Bought and fitted the rubber part from the valve purchased from screw fix as mentioned by a previous poster worked a treat. The air box seams to have a unused pipe drain nipple which could be used with a suitible piece of rubber hose attached. The later freelander uses a bolt clamp to mount the mass air flow meter which does away with the alwful compression clamp as fitted to earlier freelanders. I also got a good deal for a fram air filter at euro parts at £5.49 with the christmas offer code so pretty well pleased.👍

https://www.screwfix.com/p/arctic-products..._container

Purchesed the above valve removed the rubber part from the plastic inner and fitted it to the underside of the air box spike mount facing down ie smaller tower at top as if fitted the other way it squashes and blocks any exit for the water.

jon_a5 wrote:

Hi All

Not sure if this has been mentioned before but thought it was important enough get everyone to check.

Backstory, driving home from work in the rain the other night, nothing too deep the engine started having judders at peak toque, in high gears, thought it was clutch issues and traveled home.

Took it to lr and found a soggy air filter and water in the system (not in the engine luckily)

Turns out there is a one way valve in the bottom of the air box, that allows water to drain out but this was missing in mine (57 plate 100k miles) and caused water to be sucked into the box under acceleration.

I would recommend everyone checks there's is still there and working, as could of been costly if it wasn't...

To check you can feel it underneath the box, or remove the filter and look in from above.

If lots of peoples have failed / are missing think we should raise the case with LR...

Jon

Edit: Just wanted to add, now its all sorted. Thanks to Micheal Norman at stratstone stockton for bending over backwards to fit my car in with no notice.

Just checked mine, think it looks fine.

Hi all
Just read this old topic with interest.
I found the diaphragm missing from the bottom of my air box. Filter is dirty but dry, no issues with the car.
I’ll order up one of the poppet valves suggested but I don’t understand how this valve missing (open drain) can cause problems and soak the filter? Surely for water to enter the box through that hole it would be coming up from in the engine bay and give more problems? Brgds
Jim
2007 FL2 TD4

Pedro wrote:

Just been out and checked mine using an inspection mirror - it was missing !!

Been back out and fitted the rubber part of a ' siamp fill valve diaphragm washer ' - took 2 minutes, almost a perfect fit and cost < �3 !!

Another handy vid from Beavis Pits testing out different diaphragms Corrado VR6 Mystic Blue - Gone
Freelander 2 Orkney Grey

Personally I think I’ll leave mine as-is so it freely drains off any water entering the air box.. Driving in water that deep, enough to reach the air inlet manifold is just asking for all sorts of problems in my opinion. Brgds
Jim
2007 FL2 TD4

Checked mine yesterday. Still there, '08 with 155K.

No real off-roading, although the wife did take it through a flooded underpass a couple of times. Ops check sat.

Noticed mine is missing and have air pressure blowing through it, makes it quite noisy too as well as the whole box vibrating away. I noticed some of the air boxes have foam on the inside, is that factory or an add on to reduce noise?