View Single Post
Old 11-29-2016, 09:52 PM   #4
old911doc
Registered User
wet carpet

Hi! I've dealt with this problem in all three of our Boxsters, from different water entry causes, and have removed carpet from 986's five times.
I have bad news.The closed-cell foam on the back of the carpet will virtually never dry out without the carpet being removed from the car.
I have tried propping up the edge of the carpet with a spray can lid, hair dryer, etc; utter failures. There is no successful way to dry the car without removing it from the car.
The floor carpet is a single piece, with the rear floorboards joined but the front floorboards not joined to each other. Removal is tedious but straightforward. First, DISCONNECT THE BATTERY. Then remove the seats, center console, parking brake mechanism, lower center dash, shifter mechanism, gas pedal mechanism, right side umbrella pocket, rear side upholstered panels, and fuse panel cover.
With an assistant, the entire carpet can then be lifted out. This is best accomplished with the top down. The carpet weighs about 80-100 pounds, largely because of the weight of the closed-cell foam that deadens sound well but holds water tenaciously. The carpet can the be laid over two sawhorses, or similar, for cleaning and drying.
Now is the time to clean it, preferably with running hot water, detergent, and scrubbrush, with the carpet face up. Wet-vacuum the carpet as dry as possible, then turn it upside down. The wet vac will pull water through the fine foam for little more than the nozzle's area of contact so this will be tedious. Bear in mind that the water in the foam is settling by gravity toward the carpet bonded to it, so you will need to turn the carpet right side up overnight to allow the water to settle back to the foam's surface for vacuuming a second, and maybe a third time.
Spread the damp carpet, right side up, on a slanted broad surface in direct sunlight. The roof of your house works perfectly for this purpose, especially in Alabama in July!
Place the carpet on small wood strips or PVC pipe to allow air under the carpet to dry the foam.
I suggest:
a) While the carpet is out, drill 3/8" holes in the floor in both sides, at several points, corresponding to water collection points with the car in different positions. Low tech, but highly effective.
b) Fit the waterproof immobilizer box made for this purpose by Specialized ECU Repair in Florida (Specialized ECU Repair, Replacement, & Testing - Restore or Exchange your Electronic Control Unit (ECU)).
c) keep an extra carpet set in dry storage, so the next time it gets wet, your car is not down for days while your carpet dries out. I have a gray and a black carpet and am looking for a savanna one, one for each car.
d) Even though you carefully DISCONNECTED THE BATTERY before you disconnected the seat wiring connections, you may still get an air bag (SRS) warning light. At this point you use your Durametric tool to reset the warning light. (You DO have a Durametric kit, of course...if not yet, get the commercial version which can serve an unlimited number of VIN's--better resale value).
e) Build a heated, A/C'ed, dedicated garage for your Box...
f) Move to Alabama, where it never rains anymore.
old911doc is offline   Reply With Quote