Chris,
You have my sympathy about you car and I'm sure everyone else on the list
feels the same. I have no experience with water damage, but I think I would
have the garage make a list of what they intend to do to fix your car. Send
that list to us and perhaps we can come up with some further suggestions. I
do think that the first thing that should be done is to make sure that all
of the water is drained out of the engine, transmission, rear-end, boot,
doors, exhaust system, floorboards, lights and whatever else you can think
of and dried out as soon as possible to prevent rust from forming on
everything. I think that the seats and floor coverings and carpets should
be removed so that the inside of the car can be dried out. I also would
think that greasing the fittings would be a good idea to force any water out
of the suspension. Three feet of water probably would fill the distributor,
generator, starter and possibly the carburetors, so that should also be
taken into account and dried out before they are completely ruined. The
more I think of it the worse it sounds, but I think everything can be
repaired or replaced as good as new. When you have a completed list with
any additions that we can think of, you might have the garage pass that by
the insurance company with expected costs.
Good luck,
Dave 72 B
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Rose" <chris_rose@totalise.co.uk>
To: <mgs@autox.team.net>
Sent: Monday, October 16, 2000 3:27 AM
Subject: Any advice?
Hi All
Bad news to report, and some advice needed.
Some of you may have seen the news reports about extensive flooding in the
South East of England. Anyway, my 1963 MGB Roadster was in for a service at
a
MG specialist garage last week, unfortunately based in Uckfield.
I had been abroad during the week and went over Saturday morning to
supposedly
collect the car after its repairs, and take it to the MOT centre for a
re-test.
Well, sadly that was not to be. Wednesday night/Thursday morning, the river
Uck burst it banks, and its probably fair to say that my poor car was
basically left stranded in about 4 feet of sewage polluted water for about
36
hours.
I took some digital pics of the car when I got there, but don't have the
ability to post them up on the web from work, but if you can imagine a
beautiful looking red and chrome car, with tell tale leaves and debris in
the
front grill, and then opening the doors to find a brown scum all over the
entire car, up to about half way up the back of the seats, then you have
some
idea. The boot was full of water, and it was even deep enough to seep in
through the air filter, so the engine is probably shot as well.
Needless to say, i am completely gutted, not least as the car belonged to my
dad before me and has been in the family 20 years!
The only real plus side of the whole sorry affair is the fact that the car
was
in the garage and is therefore covered by their insurance.
I felt so sorry for the garage owner as well, my MG was one of 7 B's parked
outside and completely ruined, inside his warehouse, everything had been
under
a couple of feet of water, including all the cars in there (a couple more
B's
(including one which, by the looks of it, had JUST been re-upholstered all
through, the seats were so new they didn't even have the covers off!))and a
couple of MGA's as well.
I guess I'm posting this partly as I hope some of you might be able to
sympathise with how my weekend went seeing as this was the first thing I did
in it, and also to ask if there is anyone out there who has any experience
of
re-building a car that has been flooded.
I understand that the insurance company will pay, and the the chap at the
garage (who is a specialist MG place and so should know the right things to
do) will arrange for repairs, but I'd like to know what I should be making
sure they have checked before accepting the car back, if you see what I
mean.
I am assuming as the water was sewage contaminated that cleaning the carpets
isn't really an option and the seats which were virtually new, are ruined,
but
what else should be checked? Gearbox obviously, engine will need checking
and
drying out, the boot, the brakes and other stuff, horn would have been under
water, as will most of the lights, the tonneau that goes over the car when
the
hood is down to keep stuff out was in the back of the car, and still had
puddles in it, all my tools were in the boot, the spare wheel, even the
speaker for the stereo (well, mono, actually!) would have been submerged.
My dad says that when he rebuilt the car he wax oiled the shassis, and so
I'm
hoping that may have done some good, is it something worth trying to do
again
as part of the cleaning up/drying out process?
Basically, i want to try and get a check list written down of things you all
think should be checked on the car, and then make sure that I cross
reference
that with the work that the insurance repairer will do on the car.
Any advice or comments very much appreciated.
Many thanks
Chris
1963 MGB Roadster Submersible :(
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