Flooding help!!!

General Discussion Forums MX-5 Chat
2

 

We just witnessed the worst storm for
years in Newcastle today! I was at work and and suddenly darkness,
thunder, hail, lightning hitting the Tyne bridge, rain and floods. I
have an MK1 MX5 ‘safely’ stored away in an underground garage, when I
saw the flooding I left work but it took me two hours to get back due
to flooded roads.

The roadway up to the garages was
almost a foot under, fortunately the garages are slightly raised so
when I opened up the garage the water was up to the sills but not the
door. I couldn’t get it out as that meant driving through much deeper
water and getting it in the engine etc. When the water went down
eventually I opened the doors, footwells had puddles of water. I
started it up with a slightly rough sounding start it drove out and
I’ve been sitting there for the last three hours with hair dryers,
kitchen roll etc drying it up. Feels dry but if you hold kitchen roll
down on the footwell there is still water seeping onto it. I’ve left
it for tonight with newspaper crumpled up inside to hopefully soak it
up.

I’m glad I got it out when I did (I
know someone who has a Boxster still locked away in one of the
garages) but I’m worried it could cause damage (it is a 1998 MK1) so
I know this kind of thing could be very bad for corrosion etc. Does
anyone have any advice on what I should do to prevent any damage?

Any help would be much appreciated!

3

The water will be loaded with sewage and oil, and plenty of other stuff; not good. You should really remove the carpets entirely, and make sure everything is clean underneath.

The 1996-98 Mk1s had a thin fuzzy carpet that was prone to shrinkage; you need to remove the carpet, and, if you want to reuse it, get it steam cleaned, or similar. Personally, I’d plan on replacing it. To remove the carpet intact, the dashboard needs to come out; you need to be sure how high the water got before deciding whether to do that or not; if the water was very high, there may be silt behind there that needs to be cleaned out, so you may as well pull that dash.

If not, the carpet can only be removed with the dash in situ by cutting it out.

Replacement carpet; used carpets can be obtained from Autolinkuk etc. You need to cut the middle bit, and feed the halves up under the dash. Works fine; I replaced the fuzzy carpet in my 1996 with the superior looped pile carpet from an earleir car.

 

Otherwise, brand new after market moulded carpet can be brought from Newton Commercial (google them); they supply carpet specifically designed so the dash doesn’t need to be removed.

With the carpet out, I would take off the ECU foot plate, unplug the ECU, and check everything is clean and dry; corroded connections can cause you problems down the line.

With the carpet out, I would wash down the interior floor pan with clean water, and then dry off. Use the opportunity to get some rust converter and cavity wax into the sills, to displace any water in there.

 

My roadster narrowly missed the hail; got it tucked away in a garage in time. But the other car, the Alfa Romeo, got pummeled; all the panels damaged as far as I can see. GTip from an American friend who has been through this many times with his trucks, is to leave the dings for a while. A hot summer (we might get one) can sometimes cause the dents to pop back out.

4

 Bad luck Captain Planet,

As regards the volume of rain, I’ve never seen the likes of it before and hope it’s a long time before I do again,

As AT has said have a look at the ECU box hopefully the water didn’t get to it

5

 

Yeah the ECU is the main thing to get dry, worry about the carpet and what nots later.

M-m

6

The health impacts of sewer water should not be discounted; for that reason alone, I would condemn the carpet, since its unlikely you will be able to clean/disinfect it sufficiently and the carpet still fit afterwards.

 

Sewer water isn’t like a dirty kitchen floor. Besides being positively loaded with coliform bacteria (and a ton of other types), studies show viruses such as Hep-C do survive the treatment process, plus there is a heavy loading of toxins such as dissolved metals, PCBs might still be about.

7

 Hard luck Buddy…it could have been worse some poor bloke drowned in the midlands…strange weather…down here on the South Coast yesterday we had a glorious day, and i went out in mine for the first time in about 3 weeks…and really warm. back to normal this morning with strong winds/squalls…not MX5 weather.

I hope your “damp” issues clear up soon regards…

8

Thanks for all your answers, should be grateful as it could have been a lot worse

9

 

 

AT

I am not saying that it is not important with the germs involved, but the ECU needs to unplgged and away from the damp and water quick, and dried out asap, then get back to the roadsters with your chem kit on if need beRolling eyes

 

M-m

10

I don’t disagree; as I recall, Mazda UK used to send warranty claim ECUs away to BBR to check, and most failures were down to corroded terminals.  It came over that sewage contaminated carpet can be simply cleaned. Its clear now, from your correction, you didn’t mean that. Carpet can be cleaned/disinfected/fumigated whatever, but knowing what the carpet was like in late Mk1s, I don’t think it would be fit for anything. I’m not even sure I’d want a flood damaged early car. I had to drive my 91 Roadster through a flash flood in Northern Ireland (after a squaddie on the check point thrust his SA80 through my window, and said “you’re not going any further”;, when trying to get to my house 200 yards away); a little water managed to get into the car. But even after I cleaned up what seemed to be a miniscule amount, the car stank to high heaven for weeks after (bad milk x10).

 

Some years back, the Japanese government issued a warning about Kobe earthquake cars that were exported; a list of chassis numbers were published by the New Zealand government. These were flood damaged cars, and included Roadsters Shock. The Japanese warned that safety systems in these cars would be compromised by water penetration. I suppose that didn’t really apply so much to a Roadster, because it has precious little in the way of safety systems, but certainly cars with airbags etc, in case anyone was reading this with a different car and thought the same advice would apply. The ECU might be cleaned up, and, touch wood, might well work (drying it out should be ok, but you just don’t know if the laminated boards have been ruined), but in more modern cars, there are so many sensors embedded in seats, door card, seatbelt buckles etc, that flooding can very easily write a car off. You just can’t clean and dry everything.

 

One of the most impressive flooded MX5 recoveries I have heard about was an owner in Manila; his car was in a garage, and fully immersed in flood water and corpses for a day or say. He stripped that car down, and rebuilt it back to show standard. I suppose a little knowledge is dangerous, and Hep-C is endemic in Manila. I know though, from experience, what endotoxin poisoning is like, so probably at that point, I would have given up. Liver comes first.