I noticed yesterday that the footwells of our MK1 are wet with water, nothing that couldn’t be soaked up with kitchen roll and some heat, but fairly wet.
With me inside the car, t drips in when wifey pours water right at the base of the windscreen in the corner, sort of in the corner between the heater fan cover, the wing and the windscreen if you get what I mean…
I had a good look in there last night, and there seems to be a body seam behind the tops of the wings which has come apart a little, it looks like a little surface corrosion has occured and and the factory sealant has come away.
The water drips inside through a small oblong hole in the car bodywork, between the dash and the door seal.
If I get a chance later I’ll get in there and see if I can see exactly where its getting , but I just wondered if any of you guys have seen this before, its started to happen on the drivers side as well???
Cheers,
I found the seam sealer on my car had shrunk like yours allowing surface corrosion to start underneath. Mine hadn’t gone far enough to leak though.
To get access I removed the plastic scuttle panel and the wings, removing loose seam sealer and cleaning back to clean metal with a Dremel. I found a small pointed grinding stone perfect for the job. Where I couldn’t get the Dremel a small file was used.
The bare metal was treated with rust converter, painted and U-Pol Tiger Seal was used as a seam sealer.
The seam sealer goes under the windscreen, if you’re lucky the seam sealer won’t have separated under there allowing it to rust underneath.
You can see what I did about half way down the third page here;
https://www.mx5oc.co.uk/forum/yaf_postst75795p3_Bannedbiker-s-Eunos-Roadster.aspx?=
With yours leaking inside you need to check inside the car to see if it’s rusting there as well.
I think this is a fairly common fault, a friends mk1 was doing the same as well.
Nice write up you attached, looks like a lovely car!!
I guess the wings come off fairly easily, I did release all the top fixings last night to have a little peek inside, like you say they’l have to come off to make a job of it.
Regarding the windscreen scuttle panel, how did you remove the little covers that cover the fixings without marking them??
Thanks again…
To remove the scuttle I sacrificed the little round screw covers as a new set is about £10 (5 x small covers, 2 x larger ones at either end).
I made a small hole (about 3mm or so) in the centre of the cover and pulled it out with a pick tool. I’ve tried to get the covers out intact but they can be a bugger to get out and the scuttle panel is about £80 from memory to replace if you damage it.
The top bolts for the wings should be ok, the bolts that will probably cause a problem are at the base of the wing behind the front wheel (2 bolts) and where the wing meets the bumper.
The former can snap off as they won’t have been touched for over twenty years more than likely.
The latter use a bracket with two captive studs built in, again nuts usually corrode soild and the brackets can go thin. The brackets are about £10 each from mx5 parts.
https://www.mx5parts.co.uk/front-bumper-side-mounting-bracket-mk1-p-993.html
You may be able to undo as many fixings on the wing as possible and carefully pull the top away to gain access. Just be careful if you do this so you don’t overflex the wing and start cracking paint.
Thanks for the comment on my car, had it six years now.
Forgot to say use plenty of penetrating oil on old bolts/fixings and if you can allow them to soak in for a few days that helps.
Thanks for that,
I removed the scuttle earlier, along with the fan cover, the mud guard and bottom fixings all came out luckily, looks like someone has messed with it as one of the bottom screws had been replaced with a Tek screw or similar self drilling screw…
It doesn’t look like its spread under the windscreen, I just need to release the middle fixing between the door hinges and I’ll see how much room i have to work in.
I removed some of the loose sealant and there isn’t much of a gap there, but probably enough to let it drip in… Hopefully thats where the leak is, if not it needs doing anyway…
I’ll get some Dinitrol on order tonight, I wanted to do inside the sills anyway, their rust converter, cavity wax and some seam sealant…
While they are in the post I’ll have time to remove all the Sycamore seeds and Oak leaves!!!, fix the rubber seal on the scuttle and make a new gasket for the heater fan cover.
We only got the car last December so it hasn’t been on the road yet, I’ll tax it in April once all the dam salt has gone off the roads, can’t wait to get it out and put some miles on it. I came real close to buying one around 20 years or so ago, but being younger and on the horsepower mission I went down the Celica GT-Four route, wish I still had that too, but loved the way the MX-5 drove then…
Just a quick reply to say the car has sat out in the rain now for the last couple of days, and fingers crossed its still dry inside.
Seems it certainly was these seams letting the water in.
The extent wasn’t too bad in the end, I managed to move the wings out enough to do the job, passenger side was the worst.
Removed the original sealer, cleaned back and treated with Hydrate 80, sealed and painted over the top.
Whilst I was in there I cleaned out a bag full of leaves and silt from the bottom of the wings. Treated any suspect bits with Hydrate 80, and gave everywhere a good dose of cavity wax, inside the chassis rails in the engine bay and the sills, just need to do inside the rails under the car, and the inside section of the rear sills, from inside the car
Ended up replacing the washer bottle brackets as well, these were very rapidly recycling themselves! This is worth looking at if your NA is fitted with ABS, much longer and the washer bottle would have ended up on the road!
All together now, suspension will be next on the hit list!!
Thanks again for all the help and advise…