Check your NSR arch. I know it's a known problem area, but it won't generally get picked up on MOT and it has the potential to be highly dangerous since it rusts out around the seatbelt mounts, so check it yourself! I knew mine was an issue since i had a look and promptly poked a hole in it a few months ago, but closer inspection revealed a much worse case of rot than i expected:
By the time i had cleaned up the area and gone back to metal thick enough to weld on to i was left with this:
You can't see from the picture, but i've had to extend the patch out underneath as well to rebuild a bit of the arch, could have done even more tbh. I expect the area around the seatbelt to be a lot worse, will probably need to totally rebuild the mounting points from scratch.
The sooner you check and find the damage, the cheaper the repair will be, once it spreads into compound curves, mounting points and the like it's a total bitch to work and will probably write the car off in terms of cost. If it's that bad it's probably best to do a plate repair and just remove the rear seats for good. Checking is easy - get it jacked up on the NSR corner and take the wheel off, then get in there and get aggressive with a screwdriver lol. you'll find the worst of it up near the top of the arch, as you can see above.
By the time i had cleaned up the area and gone back to metal thick enough to weld on to i was left with this:
You can't see from the picture, but i've had to extend the patch out underneath as well to rebuild a bit of the arch, could have done even more tbh. I expect the area around the seatbelt to be a lot worse, will probably need to totally rebuild the mounting points from scratch.
The sooner you check and find the damage, the cheaper the repair will be, once it spreads into compound curves, mounting points and the like it's a total bitch to work and will probably write the car off in terms of cost. If it's that bad it's probably best to do a plate repair and just remove the rear seats for good. Checking is easy - get it jacked up on the NSR corner and take the wheel off, then get in there and get aggressive with a screwdriver lol. you'll find the worst of it up near the top of the arch, as you can see above.