[Kevin H]

If you have water coming into the footwells on your V8 Bristol the likely cause is blocked drain holes in the air intake plenum chamber below the windscreen.

There are three drain holes in the plenum chamber, each of about half an inch, so they easily become blocked with debris falling through the grill near the base of the windscreen. The pipes from these drains are marked with red arrows in the attached photos.

The problem is, there a great big hole in the firewall above the heater tray, provided for the fan to draw in fresh air. The bottom of this hole isn't far above the bottom of the plenum chamber (marked by the line of rivets in the firewall), so the plenum is easily innundated with water when it's raining heavily or the car is being washed. The result being water spilling over into the heater tray. On my car there were several small holes in the heater tray through which the water will find it's was into the cabin behind the dash. On car with the original heater box fitted, it will also find it's way under the heater box where there is a large rectangular hole through to the cabin.

My personal view is that this is poorly designed and I believe some other owners have the same opinion. My intention is to partly close off the large hole in the firewall because it is far bigger that is required to pullin fresh air.

Note: The attached photo is of a 411 V8 heater shelf but I suspect is similar to other V8 Bristols. It will look a bit different from normal because heater box and fan which normally occupy this area have been removed to make way for an air conditioner.