Whats this hole for?

 See this hole in the boot behind the battery next to the clear hose going through the boot.  What is it for?  What should be there or not there, this may be the cause of my water in the boot plus condensation.

Westco battery being fitted today £74 incl del and free fitting.  Lets hope that solves my car problem.  Foam padding for speaker headrest seat and rubber seal for boot coming next week from richard jones.

 

 

 

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 Just looked in mx 5 book.  Its supposed to be filled with a rubber seal, maybe this is my leak! 

 

Hi Tracey

You really need to sort out that rust! If you don’t there will be a hole beneath the batterey before too long. I dont understand the pipe going through the flool? Where does it come from? A proper installation looks like this.

 Thanks for that picture geoff, yours is so tidy.  The rust is just light surface colour, the metal is solid honest.  I wipe it clean a lot, its just this week the water has been collecting because its standing still.  The tubes for the breathing of the battery I am going to search for and order today.  The tube I have no idea where it comes from.  There is now a westco battery in place of that one now.  This car geoff has had a lady owner, a chinese owner hence the K888BOY and I reckon the chinese guy has just buggered the whole car up.  Its took me two years to find things missing, screws, cat c accident (bonnet slightly out of alignment), mot failure first year due to crack in engine bay over pass wheel, missing air conditioning probably due to accident bashing it.  Just ordered boot seal, got rear lights to fit, still much to do on it.  I would like the boot space resprayed and the whole car eventually, I may do later in summer.  the underside has now been waxoyled, new roof , wheels and tyres, stereo, screws, fitments, seat belts.  Does not help though I do not have a garage so in bad weather it suffers from the rain and snow.

How can I clean off the rust colour better?

 I have just pulled the battery and found some damp carpet at the back of it to cushion against the panel even though padding is already there.  Scrubbed all the area under the battery with wire wool and cleaned it with plus gas and rubbed it in.  Then dried it all off with hairdrier and towel.  Put battery tray in (it does fit - some guy off here helped me one time and said tray would not fit so I never tried it myself) put clamp back on and tyre back.  Dried out whole boot with hairdrier.  The thick tube at back of battery seems to go from the boot floor to the aerial motor ???  Do not know what that is for.  Anyway once I get the rubber grommet to fit the strange hole hopefully my boot will be dry as a bone [;)][:D]

Think I will get some rust treatment to remove the rust. 

Still learning things with this car![8-)]

You could sand the rusty area to remove the loose rust, then treat with a rust killer - Hammerite do a good on, this will turn all the rust black and should stop it from spreading.

Black Smootherite applied with a small gloss roller gives a far better finish than you would expect, the whole boot could be painted in this way for a very small outlay. It would be best to remove the battery and the rubber plugs ect before painting.

If you are struggling for a grommet to the hole fit let me know as I have quite a selection and could pop one in the post.

You could use “Krust”, Hammerite’s “Rust remover gel” Or any one of a thousand other derusters out there if you want, But from personal experiences I’d say don’t waist your money, There just overpriced cr4p. I’ve spent my life with old Fords and Fiats so I’ve seen my fair share of rust and I’ve used most of the chemicals available to try and strip it off,

Theres only one company I buy rust remover from now though.

I’ve been using coatings, gels and dips from Bilt-Hamber for a few years now and have to say there the best I’ve found. The only down side is that there geared more for people doing full body restorations, So the containers they sell are a little on the large side, The smallest they do of most things is a 1KG tub. Mind you, 1KG of there gel only costs 10 quid and as It doesn’t go off you can just use what you want then store the rest. Here’s a link to there site,  https://www.bilthamber.com/index.html. This is the only stuff I’ve found that leaves the metal cleaner than using a wire brush wheel and is less work than resorting to a wire brush wheel in the first place.

I Remember the first time I used there “Dip” chemical, It was the end of my Capri’s anti roll bar. I couldn’t get the nut off it and I needed to replace the track control arm so I ended up taking the bar off the car with it still attached. As I’d just bought my first tub of the dip, I did this more as an experiment to see if it was any good.  I made up a bucket of the stuff and left the bar’s end in it over night. Next day it was totally clean. That bast4rd nut that I’d spent 2 hours trying to budge yesterday just wound off by hand (Till then I never knew that I could feel p1ssed off and amazed at the same time [:D]), Since then I’ve haven’t seen the need to try anything else.

I know this sounds like an advert so I’d just like to say that my only connection to this company is that I’m a very impressed customer.