darlingnikki42

So we've been having some big rain storm in NoVa recently. I went to my car to move it during an especially heavy downpour and noticed a huge puddle in my footwell, which leads to rust ie very bad. So I put a bucket there to catch the water which superficially solved the problem. The next day I did some investigating and figured out that the source of the water must be from the holes around the wiper blade post. But I still didn't know what was causing the water to not properly drain out. After an hour of looking under the hood and everywhere else I saw a relatively steady stream of drops coming from a spot right above a coolant hose on the firewall, to the left of the left valve cover and below and right of the bottom of the battery. So I stuck my finger around the drip and out come a huge amount of water. It was the long lost drain hole, which actually was a large rectangular hole with a rubber piece stuck in there. Its rectangular about 2-3 inches horizontally and 1-2 inches vertically. On the right side of the fire wall, directly to the right of the brake booster is another that was crammed full of gunk and dirt and as soon as I cleared it another waterfall came pouring out. To make sure the problem didn't occur again I fitted a small piece of plastic around the wiper blade post. See image. So if anyone out there is having water leak, or pour in my case, into their footwell they should check out those drain holes. Woo hoo I fixed something!!

Nuke

The 2 rubber drain grommets in the firewall are notorious for clogging and causing ONE of the infamous 2 or 3 chronic water leakage issues with these S197's. Be glad you don't (hopefully) have the leak from above which runs down the inside of the passenger kick panel and eventually causes corrosion of the Smart Junction Box (SJB), leading to all sorts of electrical problems. There's a TSB on it.

AJ06GT

Thanks for reminding me about this! I had been meaning to check, and after that good rain it was a perfect time. The passenger side didn't have a rubber drain at all and was empty, the driver side was full of gunk and poured out when I pulled it off. Good call on that one! I wonder if there's any reason to put the rubber drain back in. It seems to only restrict the flow as dirt builds up. Wouldn't you want it to drain as fast as possible?

Nuke

I, too, have questioned the firewall drain grommets but since both of our Stangs are parked in the garage it's not quite as bad an issue. I HAVE removed the plastic inserts in the bottom of the door drains.