Carpet drying tips

New owner of a 2000 C2 cab, discovered apparently-common total neglect of rear drain maintenance resulting in soaked/drenched carpeting. As anyone who's dealt with this knows, the wet carpet isn't the issue, it's the foam underlayment which has got to be the WORST material to try to dry out. I thought I would lay out the method that worked for me for owners dealing with this issue, to hopefully save someone some time and effort figuring this out. First - if water extends any further forward than the rear seats, there is simply NO way to dry the carpeting inside the vehicle. In the front driver and passenger carpeting, water is trapped in areas with zero airflow. This is due to the construction of the foam underlayment, there are sections of styrofoam that trap water against the carpeting which is essentially impermeable to air. There is no way for the water to evaporate, plus there's no effective way to extract the water while the carpet is in the car. The water must be forced out and force dried. Some forum members suggest using a heater and dehumidifier to try to dry the carpet in the car. Unfortunately, if the underlayment is soaked this just won't work, you gotta bite the bullet and pull the carpet. Thankfully the process of removing and drying the carpet is time-consuming but not difficult. It requires a lot of patience, but except for tools it's the rare repair on these cars that doesn't cost anything but time. 1) Remove carpet - pelican instructions are excellent, make sure you have all tools and plan on 3 hours to get the carpet out. 2) Extract water - I found the best way to be flipping the removed carpet upside down, and using the weight of standing on the foam while vacuuming with a wet/dry vacuum. The foam has to be compressed while vacuuming as otherwise it sponges the water back up. It's necessary to repeat this until no water streams out (it takes a long time!) 3) Air dry. I put the carpet out for 2 warm sunny days. Surface was entirely dry to the touch after this. This step will get the rear seat carpets dry and possibly the rear passenger footwell carpet, but not the front driver/passenger underlayment. The winter option would be to hang the carpet in a bathroom with a dehumidifier. 4) Force dry. This is an important step I didn't see mentioned anywhere. Very unfortunately, even though the surface of the foam underlayment for the front driver/passenger carpet may feel dry to the touch, this is deceptive and it's only dry to about 1/4" in. If the carpeting for the front compartment was soaked it is still VERY wet inside. This is specific for the front driver/passenger carpet because it's thicker and is designed differently with styrofoam inserts (the rear passenger compartment is all less thick foam and seems to dry easier). If you put the carpet back in the vehicle at this point, even though it feels dry it is not and it is likely to mildew. The only method I found that worked to thoroughly dry the foam underlayment was to partially cut/tear sections to create "tunnels" through the foam and use a hair dryer at point-black range for a really long time. You kind of have to just go at it, to rip down into it and dry it out. This step took about 5 hours to get the foam 98% dry, and this was after it was surface-dry. This does require "damaging" the wet foam by cutting or tearing it. Fortunately, the integrity of the underlayment is of really minimal importance, as even in concours cars the judges are not going to disassemble the interior to examine the foam soundproofing. It can probably be reassembled, sort of, with spray 3m fabric adhesive or you can just leave it as-is, once installed it won't be noticeable. This is just to demonstrate, obviously you've got to hang out with the hair dryer while you're engaged in this step. I tried the space heater first, it wasn't effective. 5) Reinstall. I don't think it needs to be 100% as small pockets of dampness will probably dry now that it's partially dissected (assuming you don't glue the sections back together) but it does need to be as dry as your patience will allow before reinstalling. Of course, it's also necessary to service all the drains, very well documented elsewhere. I replaced my corrugated rear drain hoses on my cab with 3/8" ID clear tubing from Home Depot, these are really just for overflow so this is probably of minimal importance. Making sure the wheel well exits for the rear drains are clear is the most important step. And, I found that a trombone brush from Amazon really helped clean out the gunk. All in, this is probably a 10-12 hour job, including time spent force-drying the carpeting and time spent cursing the PO. One benefit is the car will smell a LOT better when you're done.

Nice write up.