Noisy roof drains. MK3

On my 2007 soft top the holes point to the ground not vertical and feel oval shaped.

This is brilliant. Thanks a million :slight_smile:

Are you sure? There is an oval shaped hole in the sill [which should have a rubber plug in it] but the drain pipes definitely don’t point down.

I’ve been under the car some more and have posted a video on my oh so interesting YouTube channel!

It was filmed on my phone so it’s a bit shaky and the car was only jacked up using my low jack so it really is cramped under there for my plenty of meat on the bones frame. I previously said the holes were oval, then i recanted and said round, now I’ve had a proper look they are certainly oval

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Fantastic stuff guys :slight_smile:

I lay on my back, head next to the wheel, feet towards the front, reached in and put my left hand straight on the driver’s side drain hole. I would say it’s a hands length from the corner of the box-section, where it goes from horizontal to vertical and facing away from you. With my finger-tip in the hole, my wrist was resting against said corner.

No need to see it at all. Reach in and feel is just fine.

Many, many thanks and maybe this thread will enable others to easily locate their drain holes.

Nice video.
I found it hard enough to get one single decent still pic when lying on my side. My second pic was taken when it was up on the lift at the dealer while I was inspecting it before buying the car - loads of pics to study carefully…

On mine the holes above the drain outlets have grommets to plug them. See my first pic above. I think they are meant to help when joining up the two halves of the drain (easy with two people and a lift, apparently).

The big oval ones in mid-sill shown in your video are apparently for the ocean-shipping tie-down points (no, I don’t know how they work). Not all dealers remember to fit the supplied plugs on the new cars!

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Ah that makes sense. I did pop them out and was pleased to see nice clean primed metal underneath. I greased the area before putting ht eplug back, can’t be too careful with a daily driver. I’ll have to get hold of some plugs for the other holes

Yes I’ve got one of those rubber bungs missing, it’s either fell out or the dealer never fitted all of them?

So, in the interests of road-noise suppression, it would probably be a good idea to replace those grommets, if missing or failing that, to stuff some more foam in the upper holes too.

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Phew, just checked and my grommets are in place :slight_smile:

Your local pet shop will have the foam as well. I picked some up made by Fluval. You don’t need much. Cut into a rough tube shape and it should stay in place. Also, don’t jam loads in as the drain flaps still need to work.

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I stand corrected, i pull the trombone cleaner out put filter foam in the end by touch and feel, felt like they were slightly oval and pointed down but they are as per photo and on an angle. Got me worried then where i was putting the trombone cleaner.

Are the roof drains in the same location (under the car i mean) on the PRHT version of the car?

I stuffed some foam in up what i was sure were the drain holes quite some time ago (didn’t seem to make much difference…if any). The pipe i added the foam to didn’t seem to be on a side.

Cheers all

On the PRHT the drain outlets are on the oblong profile front to rear box section area of the floorpan and are horizontal. They face the centre of the car. They are just forward of the bolt which holds the end of the pressed steel stiffening braces that triangulate to the rear subframe.

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Having taken very useful advice on here, I was able to easily find the drains on my mark 3.5 roadster:

So, to find the bottom end of your drain tubes:

Lie alongside the car on your back with your head by the rear wheel, feet towards the front.

Reach straight under the car and find the corner where the box section goes from horizontal to vertical, facing away from you. With the inside of your wrist resting against this corner, your finger-tips should easily find the end of the plastic drain tube, which stands a few mm proud of the vertical metal panel. Both this panel and the tube will be facing away from you.

You don’t need to see it, feeling it is fine.

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Took the car for a drive, ie to the supermarket for essential supplies.

My noisy roof drains are noisy no longer - yay… :smiley:

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I thought I would chip in on this subject. So thanks to the forum I found out my transmission wasnt failing and that the valves on my near side rear were broken. I bought the car from my neighbour and along with the VRD he gave me an old roof aerial and told me to stuff it down the square holes regularly to keep the muck out! So that’s how the problem started. So I thought I have to do this right so I managed to stuff in the aquarium foam and that reduced the noise. However shortly after I found I had water in the near side floor pan under the seat . This was nothing to do with the foam as it was dry. When I tried the trombone brush I couldn’t get it down the hole. So I purchased the replacement drain kit ( £80 both sides) . I followed all the videos etc and after an hour got the new one fitted. A bit fiddley but no big deal. The old one had both valves broken. One completely gone and the other pulled back the wrong way and totally jammed up with gunk. There was no way a trombone brush was ever going to clear it. So I guess the moral of the story is change the drain valve assembly and if you use trombone cleaner push it all the way through and out the bottom. NEVER pull it back up.

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Are the new drain tubes with intact flap valves any quieter than the old ones with foam stuffed in them??₩

Yes they are. When you first put the foam in its a great improvement but then fixing the dual drain improves it even more. Is it worth £80? Thats a personal decision but being an engineer I much prefer to fix the root cause of the problem.

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I can’t help wondering about loosely fixing some thin foam on top of the roof drain grills. If water is present, the foam would float and allow the water to flow underneath.
You wouldn’t want to interfere with the roof mechanism of course but maybe the foam could be anchored with a trim button or two into the grill in such a way that it acts as a flap that lifts to allow water through but otherwise acts as an extra sound barrier.

I had thought of this also 999to5, I was just wondering though how to get it under the the grills. My thought though is the noise would travel to the top of the car before being blocked by the foam. But if at the bottom it would stop the noise entering the car in the first place. I have some foam which arrived today actually. Now I need to find out how to cut it to size, what size and then find the blasted holes.