I have the interior out on my 68, and the kids washed the car yesterday. I opened the door and found puddles of water on the floor pan. With the kick panels removed I see it coming in from above through the cowl vent grill, down the sides, and splashing into the interior. This car was a hack restoral done by some cheap @$$ that actually cut everything off behind the panel to make it fit easier.

My question is, will the normal full/complete kick panel divert this water away and prevent the water from leaking into the interior? Or, do I need to do something else to protect my new interior?

THANK YOU!

The kick panel actually inserts IN a couple inches to the hole in the sheet metal, and GM used a thick rope of flexible putty around it to seal it from the outside. It's part of the design of the car for water to flow into the cowl, down the sides and through the "Flow-Through" rockers and out the back at the rear of the rockers through a hole covered by a little rubber on the inside of the inner rocker. If your kick panels are cut up, meaning the part that sticks into the hole in the sheet metal panel, then you really need new kick panels to fix it right, unless you completely block off that oval shaped hole with a plate of some kind.