I readily removed the rubber engine sealing strip and plastic cover to get access to the pollen filter box. Someone had been there before because it looked like some screws were missing.
There were a few leaves in the area and I decide to remove the box to inspect what was going on in more detail. I saw that the filter box was held in place by just two screws, which appeared to screw into captive nuts on the filter box. As I now know, this was wrong.
The next thing to was to get to the underneath of the filter box and remove the screws. This seemed to necessitate removal of the glovebox and the the fan.
I spent a lot of time discovering how to remove the glovebox. It is not a free standing item, but has an integral plastic bracket which goes all the way across the centre console and fixes to the drivers side of the console. Here's a picture of what the car looked like when I had removed the glovebox, loosened the centre console climatronic and radio and removed the dash under the drivers side.
and here's the glovebox
After a fair amount of headscratching I realised that the amount of work to remove the air ducting, AC evaporator etc just did not seem right for the job and decided to see of the captive nuts on the filter box were in fact plastic nuts.
I gently applied pressure and the nuts loosened..........meaning I had dismantled the interior for no purpose
I quick inspection showed that there was an M12 sized hole with some silicone sealant around the edge. It looks as though a bolt is missing but with nothing to screw into I decided to simply seal the hole with some silicone sealer
The main water drain which empties water down the side of the wing is located in front of the filter box. I poured water down here and it came out of the bottom.
I then poured water to the rear of the scuttle area which confirmed that the water was coming in through that home. More that that, the reason the problem was so bad was because the car is still on front jacks meaning any water going into the scuttle area naturally flows to the rear.
It's a bit of a long post, but as others have had problems with water leaks I thought I would write something to help people with the same problem, and also give some advice about how to remove the glovebox if they need to. I hope someone finds it useful.
Anyone know what should be filling the hole ?
