I have been informed that I need to replace the seal that goes over the windscreen and down to the doors, is this right?

Not always. The cheater (bit that the mirror is attached to) can be adjusted. Is it a new car (still under warranty)? If so, I suggest that your dealer tries this first.

If it is out of warranty, you can adjust the cheater yourself, but you have to take the interior trim off the door and it can be a bit of a pain. Others have suggested placing a thin piece of rubber tubing inside the rubber door seal to "pad it out" so to speak, don't really know the details of this though.

HTH

Edit
Just had a quick search and found the following thread, explains things a little better than I did.
http://forums.mg-rover.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6070&highlight=cheater

;-P

 

Yes. This concurs with the reply I got from official MGR service 'specialist' when I enquired about same problem.

I haven't had it done on my car so unable to comment from personal experience if it is succesful remedy.

 

simple!!!!

drive with the hood down!!!!!!

 

SteF, what age is your car?
If its pre 2000 it may have the old type of window stops, these are prone to breaking and causing the window to 'stop' too high, this pushes the cheater out a bit further than it should be, and can cause leaks/damage the seal.
You can replace the old type stops with the new un-breakable type ones to cure /prevent this.

 

simple!!!!

drive with the hood down!!!!!!

Wannabe

 

Thanks for the replies, after this friday's torrential rain the trusty rag stuffed under the adjuster just managed to stop a flood. On closer inspection it looks as if the water is ingressing from between the glass and the rubber seal that the window pushes up against, is this where the "cheater" is? or do I need to undo the small screw on the plastic housing of the wing mirror adjuster and fiddle with that?. I have noticed that the passenger side is leak free, and that the door seems to need a good pull to open it, where as the drivers side opens easily. BTW it's a pre 2000 TF.

 

BTW it's a pre 2000 TF.

There is no such thing (unless we are talking original pre-war TF's here:lol: )
If it was made before 2000 than it is an MGF?.
As I stated above, there is a very good chance on a car of this age that the window stop has bust and this is causing the window the push on the cheater and causing the leak. Remove the door card and lower the window until you can see the lower edge, there is a hole in the glass through which should be mouted a window stop (pre 2000 ones are white or orange). If there is just a hole, than the stop has broken and is probably lying in the bottom on the door. it is worth replacing the stop, broken or not with later the TF type, as even if its not broken now, chances are it will in the near future.
I would check the stop before trying to adjust the cheater or buy a new expensive seal as it is easier and cheaper.

 

Is there anything you dont know Steve :cloud9:

 

Leant that one from personal experience

Is there anything you dont know Steve

This weeks winning lotto numbers............

 

SO you dont know this weeks .... how about the week after ? :doh:

 

Hmmm, could be an damaged window stop, but

On closer inspection it looks as if the water is ingressing from between the glass and the rubber seal that the window pushes up against, is this where the "cheater" is?

seems to suggest otherwise.

The Cheeter is the black rubberised triangle that the wing mirror is mounted to shown >> here << and yes it is adjustable. If it is poorly adjusted than it will compress and close the drainage channel built into the rubber windscreen frame seal causing water to leech into the cabin and drip onto the top of the door card.

There are a number of possible cures, but depending on the age of the car they are not always entirely successful.

a ) Adjust the cheeter. This should be done anyway, but is no guarantee of success. Basically the rubber windscreen seal has a 'memory' and if it is compressed by a poorly adjusted cheeter for long enough then it will stay that way.

b ) New windscreen surround seal. Will cure if the cheeter has been adjusted. Try the MGF Centre for a nearly new one as opposed to an MGR dealer (where you'll get stung for a lot of cash).

c ) Not tried this, but some people have had results with small bore plastic tubes slotted inside the rubber drainage channel in the windscreen surround seal. Basically this keeps the channel open and flowing even with a poorly adjusted cheeter - worth a try at the very least as it isn't going to cost very much at all.

 

Andy,

I am actually gonna stop the monkey action on this thread and ask a serious question. I see that you can adjust the mirrors from this vantage point ... therefore

(1) How do you get the rubber cap out

(2) Can you adjust the tilt of the mirror from here as I think the biker thing knocked my mirror out of alignment. I say this because when I have my mirror in the perfect rear view position it seems to be tilted a little bit too far down ???????????

Cheers

On and see you on Thursday

 

Hmmm, the TF has electric mirrors doesn't it?

I ask because Scarlet, being an MGF of 1996 vintage, doesn't. She has manual mirrors (with modified handles). See >> here << for details.

So, Steve is possibly better placed to try to answer this than i, but i'll give it a go.

1 ) Rubber caps are easy to remove (indeed most people have at least one missing as they tend to fall out on thier own!) The rubber caps though, just hide the main mounting bolts for the mirror - there are two of them and if you undo them you can withdraw the entire mirror from the cheeter. The extract from the SOS site (above) gives you step-by-step instructions for removing the mirror, but as i said earlier, this is for an F/TF with manual mirrors (Mk1 F, 1.6 F, 1.6 TF), so is not entirely relevant. If you are interested click the 'next picture' button and it will go through the process a step at a time.

2 ) No, you cannot adjust the mirror from here, the screws are merely to fix the mirror to the cheeter. Three possible problems here, one is that the wiker (cross between BIKER and W:***:NKER geddit! ) damaged the mounting somehow - manual mirrors are on a ball and socket type arrangement, leccy ones i believe are fixed, meaning they are more susceptible to damage in a minor collision. The second possiblility is that one of the mini-racks has jumped a few teeth. Leccy mirrors consist of a mirror mounted on a central gimbal with a pair of tiny rack and pinions. One does the horizontal movement (in / out) and the other does the vertical (up / down). It is possible that the wiker made the cog/pinion jump a few teeth on the rack meaning that you have less movement on one of them. I'm not sure if this is self correcting or not, theoretically it shouldn't matter where the cog is on the rack as you should still be able to get full movement out of it - i suppose it depends if there are stops built into the pinion (i.e. a finite amount of rotation) as opposed to stops on the rack (which is more likely IMO). The last option, and this is favourite as far as i'm concerned, is that the impact partially unclipped the mirror glass from the gimbal. I have had this happen before and it is a pain in the bum to sort out. Basically the glass clips into the gimball with a number of plastic clips, this makes the glass replaceable as opposed to an entire mirror unit. If one or more of these clips aren't fully seated then the mirror won't sit square on the gimbal and it will point in the wrong direction. Either it has come partially unclipped (which means it is possible, if difficult, to clip it back in) or one or more of the clips are broken (meaning a new mirror glass and/or gimbal, new gimbal probably means a new mirror). Clipping it back in is tricky because it requires even pressure to be appled on a gimbal and the hidden components are plastic and can break easily - possible, but can take a while.

Hope this helps mate, see you on Thursday.

 

>(cross between BIKER and WNKER geddit! )<

Surely that should be Banker!

 

Not that it is going to help you, but I just got mine back from the dealer for exactly that leaking problem. They replaced the head seal ( which is apparently the one that goes up around the window, I checked and the job was done) and adjusted the cheater. Now with a pressure washer no water gets in that bad boy (got to do a reasonable test after the chimps at the dealer have had it :irked: ):lol:

 

Gulp. Sorry that should have been F not TF, I will get my spanners out and adjust fiddle, with the mentioned gubbins.