Water in sill

[John]

Hi All,
After all the rain in Wellington recently, and not a drop from around the windows, I was disapponited to hear sloshing from the passenger side of the car. On close insepction I found the sill was full of water! The water has since drained out. Has any had experience with this problem and come up with a solution? The only place that I thought that water may enter the sill is under the sill plates; could there be another way for water to enter this region?

Cheers
John

[MX5PWR]

Hi John, just behind the seat belt anchor points there is a plastic tray that the water from the roof runs into. At the end of the tray away from the seat belt anchore is a hole about the size of standard garden hose. This gets blocked and the water runs into the sills. Clear the holes and pipe that runs down from them (be careful not to use to much force as you can pull the pipe off the plastic tray) If you can get your garden hose into the top of the hole, hold it in place firmly, get someone to turn on the tap till water runs out the bottom. Don't try this on you own as the hose can pop out and you then have a car full of water. Also get a small screwdriver or blade and clean out the drain holes in the sill. Two at each end where the jack point is.

Good luck

[Sugoi]

Hi John,

We had the same issue and solved it in a similar manner. We cleared out all the leaves/dust etc from the top of the drain, then used a drink bottle to put a small amount of water down it. We then worked from the other end, the underside of the car, and pushed a piece of lacing wire, the really thin stuff up toward the top. Once you have a small hole, the water will run out, then you can continue to flush it from the top and jiggle the wire from the bottom. Once it has cleared a bit you can get a small screw driver in there and really clear it out.

Hope that helps

[John]

Hi,
Thanks for the replies. I cleaned out the pipes and drainage holes and the water is now flowing freely.
Many Thanks
John

[conceptrat]

Just a another thing to add to that...

Usually the problem with water in the sill is indirectly caused by the above mentioned problem of obstructions in the plastic pipe that drains water from the plastic drain tray but this only part of the problem.

If the pipe is blocked then the water overflows from the drain tray and ends up going down between the metal panels and the carpet behind the seats and ends up soaking into the carpet on the way down as well as under the carpet on the floor beneath the seats.

To get water into the sills it is a different kettle of fish...

Sometimes the plastic pipe that leads from that plastic tray behind the seatbelts can come off. When this happens though the water drains out of the drain tray and then spills directly into the area behind the metal panels and down into the sills.

It can be a pain to get it back on without removing the panels behind the carpeted areas but if it hasn't moved too far you can often just wiggle it from the other end underneath the car and get it back onto the flange that is part of the plastic tray.

I found out about this from the guy who does softtop replacements over in the shore in Auckland.

The other part of the problem with the sills being full of water can always be remedied by cleaning out the drain holes at the bottom of the sills starting from where the jack points are. This is considered a standard part of the maintenance with the MX5.

Cheers
Julz

[Grant]

Had a problem with water in our passenger sill today as well.
Have a look here for the explanation!

http://www.silverfernrally.co.nz/photos ... at=4&pos=0

Grant (still in Blenheim, Bugger!)

[Posted via External Email]

[peter]

crikey!
 
of course, your MX5 probably would have driven through that pipe...
 
 
Peter
DRGN1

 


[Posted via External Email]

[Grant]

Not one of our better days! A mad rush today to get my Isuzu Bighorn back on
the road (only needs warrant and registration), remove the radio equipment
from the Wizard and install it in the Bighorn. Got about 4 hours to do that
then drive 8 hours (plus comfort stops) to rejoin the rally in Queenstown
tonight. Just been called to Rally Base at 6:30 this morning to sort out a
communications problem. It's fun doing these cushy volunteer jobs!

Hope to get some more pictures from further south on the site tomorrow, if
the laptop still works. It's stripped and drying out at present. Only a very
small amount of water in it.
Now it's snowing down there and that could make it difficult as well.

Grant.

[Posted via External Email]