Where are the sill drains on an NC?

Technical Area Body, Interior & Styling
21

Speed holes🤭

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22

They’re Panpipe holes, the wind passes over them and it whistles a lovely melody as you’re driving along. A bit like that sound enhancement doofer on the engine intake.

Don’t worry about blocking those cill drains, you won’t succeed in sealing up a cill from underneath with paint unless you try really, really hard for days on end.

Painting over corrosion weakened cills is pretty naughty though. It’s basically hiding potentially dangerous issues from the MOT tester.

23

Cor, that really boils my blood, that does! Who on God’s green earth would do such a thing?!?!?

And without a coat of filler, too!

24

Sill filler

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Looks just like metal.

25

Clear them with a sturdy zip tie. A screwdriver could be a bit brutal. Just need to do it regularly. Once blocked you have a whole heap of pain( rust)

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26

I remember when this was all green fields :grinning: oh and it was newspaper and/or chicken wire to put in the cills before a good coating of filler :rofl:

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27

I got duped when buying a MK3 Cortina, chicken wire and newspaper under a coat of filler hiding holes in the tops of the wings. Young and innocent back then and clueless about cars.:grin:

28

The first Mk2 Jag we three students looked at on a very muddy farm outside Brissle was one of those.

We knew we could fix the big ends (new shells) and low oil pressure (new timing chain and thicker oil) to sell it on again, despite the farmer’s son’s claims of “T’ain’t endy down barm loike” trying to drown the sounds of heavy duty castanets. That was merely an initial negotiating point, as it didn’t burn any oil and the rest of the mechanicals looked and felt OK.

Unfortunately the unusually immaculate paintwork on the sills in front of both rear wheel arches could not hide the fact the quarter-elliptic spring mounts were rising up into the body, and that suspension was suspiciously soft with the back seat moving as we bounced the car. And the magnet failed to stick anywhere near those wheel arches. We didn’t have the welding skills for such a major job.

We “walked away” from it, only slightly woozy, with some more free zyder (with bits in) and good will all round.
:laughing:

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29

Not hiding them, cleaning up and treating the rust. That’s what you’re supposed to do isn’t it, otherwise they just continue to get worse.

30

Yep sorting the rust is the way forward, I believe Duratec’s comment was tongue and cheek

31

A starbucks wooden coffee stirrer is also good for cleaning those sill drains.