Leak Sealing and Mould Treatments?

[Ducked]

Cars leakiness hasn't really been a big issue previously since I used to park under the local raised railway line, but I recently started getting hefty fines and had to stop (This may be an unofficial "Get that heap of the street" thing, since other cars still park there, but there probably isn't much I can do about that.)

Anyway, heavy rain while I was in the UK, and it got a bit wet. I anticipate some electrical problems, plus theres mould on most of the plastic surfaces and the seat fabric.

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Know any good mould treatments?


Main entry seems to be via the windscreen rubber. i thought of perhaps running hot paraffin wax or PVA adhesive in there. Vegetable oil will grow more mould.

Window rubbers are colonised by ants. They don't like diesel, but the rubbers probably won't either, so I'll rely on disturbance initially and reluctantly follow up with hot water if that doesn't work.


First step was to remove the sill drain plugs, which I should have done before I left

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Pity to evict this little focus-resistant fella though.

(Sorry, no preview and hadn't realised the pictures wouldn't embed in the text. Should have used captions. Also dunno how you control the orientation)

 

[ET16]

You can clean mold with vinegar, also borax.

 

[kart17]

The Borax is great to remove the ant problem.

That's a lot of water out of the sill plate........you need to fix that first.

Your hot and humid weather adds a lot to your problem.

 

[maxdustington]

Have you tried aluminum foil + sunflower oil?

 

[Ducked]

Originally Posted by maxdustington
Have you tried aluminum foil + sunflower oil?


Thats for rust.

Sunflower oil alone would creep into thin gap but it might not stay there, and in this location it'll get behind the headlining and grow mould.

As I said.

 

[Ducked]

Ok, thanks. Now I just have to find

(a) The Chinese fpr Borax
(b) A Taiwanese that's ever heard of Borax (rare, I'm betting)
(c) Somewhere that sells it, staffed by (b) (rarer still, I'm betting)

To be fair on Taiwan (which as a gin-sodden expatriate I don't like to be) generic products like that are getting hard to find back home too, having been displaced by super-whizzo branded products that are much more expensive and probably less effective.

 

[Ducked]

Originally Posted by Ducked
Originally Posted by maxdustington
Have you tried aluminum foil + sunflower oil?


Thats for rust.

Sunflower oil alone would creep into thin gap but it might not stay there, and in this location it'll get behind the headlining and grow mould.

As I said.


By popular request?

Hatchback floor had some fairly bad rust under the paint. The hatch leaks, and there were rat droppings in this area so maybe rat urine was also a factor. (I washed the whole floor down with just-boiled water with some diesel in it, giving myself a bit of diesel dermatitis when I wiped it up. Should have worn gloves.)

Power-abrading "dry" works quite well on things like rusted brake drums, but on painted components you seem to end up polishing the bare metal, which reduces the amount of aluminium deposited, as here.

If you abrade the oiled rust, it, and the loosened paint, forms part of a thicker coating, though it doesn't look as good.

I can re-treat it, but that detracts a little from the one-shot simplicity of the method.

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