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MG MGF Technical - leaking

I have a 97 MGF and have for the last three months stored my car on parents drive while I have building work. The car has not been used for all of this time and when I looked in the other day found the cockpit and boot sopping wet.

The hood did have two very tiny holes (where frame rubbed) but are patched up. The car has not been driven and so I don't understand how or where the water is getting in.

When I say wet I mean puddles of water and now a thick layer of fungus growing over the whole thing.

Any ideas greatly appreciated.
Tim

Some fish, a rockery?
Freddy

Tim,

Obviously, the cockpit and boot issues are not related.

Water can get into the boot through the rear light seals and/or the rubber seal around the boot lid.

Check the boot seal for any imperfections.

It is relatively easy to remove the rear light clusters and replace seals with new ones, or use clear sealant if you're not too fussed.

As for the cockpit, water can get in through the heater matrix seal. If you have an import with air conditioning, this is another problem area, just under the glove box.

Another common problem is the seal beside the door mirrors. My driver's side one leaks like a seive.

You will probably have to remove the seats, carperts and underfelt to completely dry out the interior. If you do, climb inside the cockpit and have someone create a heavy rain shower with a hose to identify where you have water ingress.

Good luck!
Sam Murray

Probably no use to you now... I noticed that if I park my 98 MK1 on a slope I have to park it nose pointing down the slope to keep it dry. If it is nose up or parked sideways (ie heavily cambered road) then it leaks!

Nick
Nick Atkins

The MGF seems to have a million places where water can leak in. Another consequence of poor quality build. It took me the best part of a year to get dry floors on mine. I removed the seats, then all the flooring and put the seats back so I could use the car. I dried the floor with towels then waited to see where it comes from. It helps to draw chalk lines around the vertical faces of the sills and side walls so that tracking water can be spotted.

I found water would enter at the top of the front wing, track down the outside face of the footwell and then literally pour in through some holes punched there - I ended up taking the wing off to seal that one up. There were also gaps between the panels where they weren't welded together closely enough or no seam sealer was used.

The last place that finally ended my misery was around the bonnet hinge - took me ages to locate that one. I unbolted the hinge and slapped a load of silicon sealant under it and bolted it back down. Dry floors at last! Why do we have to put up with sort of thing just because it was made in Britain?
Mike Howlett

A 97 car probably still has the MK1 hood that does not wrap around the top of the screen pillars this was an attempt to reduce the leakage issue when parked on a slope. The MK2 has this feature and does not have the seams down it.
Agree with the mirror issue.
Also the early cars did not have the cut outs in the door seals which were designed to allow the water that got inside to run out again, easy to retro fit/ cut out of existing seals. Without these the water runs around the inside of the seals and then inside the car not outside.
Dave

Its almost certainally the heater matrix causing the front to be waterlogged.

The glove box is held on with 4 screws two on the top and two on the bottom, remove this glove box competely.

You can then see the black plastic air intake for the Heater matrix which goes through the bulkhead into the under bonnet area.

There is a foam rubber seal that fits around the black heater intake and the bulkhead that is rubbish.

Feel this and if its completly soaked thats your leak. As the others say there may be small others but this was the big one.

Just get 3 tubes of sealant from halfords and apply liberally between the heater and bulkhead from under the glove box to form a good seal and this will work.

I found that a wallpaper seam roller will work to dry out the underlay. Take out carpets and then underlay and place flat against a will the water will pour out but as its like a sponge it will retain some. Use the seam roller to squish the water out and then dry over radiator in house or whatever.

Hope this helps

Brian
Brian

I have found that my '97 MPi leaks mainly when there is a high wind (together with rain!)

The water running off the roof (Mk1 hood) gets blown in around the seals.

After a particularly bad soaking I didn't want to remove the carpets and underfelt, so I put my dehumidifier inside the car on the passenger seat and over a period of 3 days collected 4 litres!

Andy
Andy Dear

Buy a car cover for 15 quid ( breathable ) from Towsure
Marcus

A car cover doens´t help when you´re driving in the rain.

The hood has a cell rubber around it´s perimeter where is folds in the parcel shelf. When this foam is worn, water enters and flows to the door rubbers. In the middle of the door seals near the footwell, water can enter the car. This comes from a MGR technical bulletin.

I have had water entering through a rubber grommet that feeds electrical wiring into the cabin, near the glove box. I actually saw it dripping.

Another area is the pedal mounting plate. It has a cell foam type waterseal. This will wear eventually.

The technical bulletin has one of those logical flow diagrams to follow in order to find the problem. using buckets of water of course. You can buy a workshop manual for £1,- off ebay,

good luck.
David Peters

Here's my two penneth...

I've finally solved all my leaks and, for the moment, the car is bone dry. I missed where exactly in the cockpit yours was getting wet?

The likely areas to look:

Passenger footwell - Likely cause, air intake (see above).

Water running over the door speakers - Worn out A frame seal, ill fitting cheaters or mis-aligned windows (or combination of all). After trying all the fixes (tubing down the seal etc) I eventually replaced the seal & cheaters (maybe overkill but it worked!!) and correctly aligned the windows. The A frame seal is definatley worth replacing though on a car of this age. My replacement seal was so much more flexible and molds better to the door contour - you'd be suprised just how hard the 10 year old seal has become in comparison.

Water behind driver or passenger seat - Rear hood to body seal. Water runs off the hood into a channel around it's base then escapes through a little channel and runs down the door shut panel. The channel may be blocked (allowing water to back up and flow under the seal) or, as in my case, the water was finding it's way under the seal at the point where the seal changed from horizontal to vertical (where it runs down along the door edge). Cured by lifting the seal and applying a mastic sealant under it.

Less likely but possible - Heater matrix (hose connections) leak - You would notice the coolant level dropping for this one and you would likely be able to smell the antifreeze.

Boot leak - Not had this one but the lights are the most likely point of ingress (as already said).

Mark Clayton

Update

Boot
Removed carpet from boot. Removed lights and applied bead of sealant to body and let dry before re fixing lights, though to be honest I can't see that this was problem area as foam was dry and no sign of water ingress. Applied sealant at junction of where the seal around engine hole ends and meets the top boot seal. Third thing that I did was to use waterproof black duck tap over the top edge of engine bay padding on bulkhead. None of these solutions seems to have worked and even with the carpet removed cannot see how water is getting in though it still is.

Cabin
The leak is driver side only and I think two unrelated points. First is easy to spot and is I think were water was getting in around cheater down face of door card and over the speaker. Have adjusted cheater to bring in closer to A post though not sure if this has worked.

The second leak, which seems worse, is on floor behind seat. I sure that this is coming in around the corner of hood behind shoulder. I think but can't yet confirm that it might have been due to the rubber seal part where the roof folds, I think that the rubber was in front of the canvas rather than behind it as on passenger side of car which is dry.

So in summary still at a loss to where the boot is leaking, though feel that I might have found if not truly fixed the cabin leaks. Any further ideas much appreciated.

Thanks
T Graveling

If you open the boot the cross member has four holes in it fit rubber grommets from local car spares. should stop the leak on early cars hope this helps
Steve
sr foster 81

This thread was discussed between 19/02/2008 and 27/03/2008

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