Car was in a flood...what damage should I look for?

[Dylan0123]

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A woman walking by my car took this picture of it. I found it on facebook, in an album titled "Flood of 2011".

My car is 200 miles away, sitting outside my buddy's shop and tue. night it rained a ton. The small creek running into a drain right in front of where my car was sitting overflowed and water got the carpet wet.

Thankfully my $2000 motor and freshly rebuilt tranny were inside the shop and didn't get wet! So the car is sitting outside with no tranny or motor in it and I'm wondering what all I should look at this weekend when I go down there.

I figured I'll take out the seats and carpet and replace it since it was a piece of junk anyway. I'll take the door panels off and look around in there. I'm also going to look at the wiring under the dash area and check the ECU to make sure it wasn't soaked.

Does the ECU sit up higher under the dash? I haven't looked at it since I got the car. Also are there a lot of wires running along the floorboard?

My brand new TZ-Series kevlar clutch disk and SS-Series pressure plate from South Bend Clutch were sitting on the floor in the shop which flooded, and they got soaked.... My friend said the clutch dried out and looks like it did when he first opened it except some minor surface rust, but should I still worry about using it or do you think it'd be ok? I'm going to call South Bend but I just thought I'd get an opinion from you guys.

My starter and alternator got wet as well. Should I get new ones or go ahead and run them and see what happens?

Can you think of anything else I should do? I already have new fluid to put in the rear diff, and I'll be getting new cv axles for the front. Also, the entire bottom side of the car was caked with oil from the massive oil leak the motor suffered before it died so I'm hoping that helped prevent some rust!

Thanks for the help in advance!

 

[GsXdSmKingGsX]

You should be checking for damage that you cant see on a quick once-over. Back in Minnesota a kid bought a car that was in a flood in Florida and the motor blew up from water damage somehow and the kid didnt know how to react and drove the car off a damn cliff... So Im just saying be careful.

 

[Absit]

Don't worry about replacing parts, see what's actually broken first. And the ECU sits just below the stereo, you may have an amp under your passenger seat that may require some attention too.

 

[Dylan0123]

You should be checking for damage that you cant see on a quick once-over. Back in Minnesota a kid bought a car that was in a flood in Florida and the motor blew up from water damage somehow and the kid didnt know how to react and drove the car off a damn cliff... So Im just saying be careful.

Like what kind of damage? I do plan on doing a thorough teardown. Lol that's a sad, and also funny story. Like I said, the motor and tranny aren't in the car. I'm guessing I'll have some issues with electrical connections and things rusting.

 

[Mindravel]

Your electrical as well as your alternator and everything should be fine. Now what I mean as long as they weren't plugged into a charged battery when the water was inside your car. If the battery was in the car and hooked up you might have some shorts in the wiring and a whole mess. But since your engine and everything is out I am sure your battery was disconnected. So just wait a while make sure all the water is out of the car and all the electrical is dry before you hook your battery back up and all should be well.

 

[PieEyedPiper]

Once it gets going again, be sure to inspect the balljoints for wear before putting any miles on it and then again after "some miles". If there is water contamination it will be apparent in a few thousand miles, maybe more maybe less.

I also agree, if there was no power, and all electrical parts are 100% dried there's no real reason they shouldn't work. However, you may have tio factor in rust/corrosion as you mentioned. But a lack of electricity helps greatly in that department.

 

[Dylan0123]

Sounds good. Yeah the battery wasn't anywhere near the car. And it'll definitely be sitting around drying out for another week or so. I'm just so glad the motor and transmission weren't in water, that would have really sucked.

 

[gusu]

Sounds good. Yeah the battery wasn't anywhere near the car. And it'll definitely be sitting around drying out for another week or so. I'm just so glad the motor and transmission weren't in water, that would have really sucked.

I know this might sound stupid but I'd go buy a spray bottle and hydrogen peroxide. Make sure it is the super watered down kind that comes in the brown bottle or it will bleach cloth. But anyway, spray down the cloth to keep it from molding. Hydrogen peroxide is used as a anti-fungal and will kill the shit out of mold.

Be warned if you buy the wrong stuff it will ruin your seats! Just look for it by band aids.



A interesting (not really) fact about Hydrogen Peroxide, when it is not diluted with water it is a really cool looking pale blue!

 

[LiquidX]

Was a battery plugged in? If not the electronics could be fine from any sort of shorts but there could be corrosion happening that you cannot see. I would make sure everything througly dries out before hooking up any power.

After that then check for what's not working. You could check with your insurance for coverage if anything needs replaced.

 

[Dylan0123]

Thanks for the tip Gusu, I might give that a try.

LiQUiDx, no the battery wasn't plugged in. It wasn't in the engine bay or anything, it's sitting on a shelf in the shop. Yeah, like I said it's gonna sit around for a while before I hook up any power to it.

I called South Bend Clutch about the disk getting wet, and the engineer there said that I shouldn't have anything to worry about as long it's all dried out and looks normal, which it does. So that's good news as well!

 

[99talongsx]

mold and mildew, look to make sure it didn't get into the fuse panel

 

[LiquidX]

mold and mildew, look to make sure it didn't get into the fuse panel

Electrical connections will only be affected if a short occurs when water AND electricity are present. No battery, no power; all fine as log as it's all dry when power is applied. The only thing that could occur is corrosion and oxidation of the copper which could cause increased resistance in the wires or low current travel.

 

[Dylan0123]

I went down to see the car this weekend and there was mold behind the passenger side seat so I took the seats and carpet out. I'll replace it with black carpet instead of the nasty, old gray one. There was about 1/2'' of water in one section under the carpet so I mopped it up with some paper towels.

My friend made it out to be worse than it was. The water basically just got the carpet wet, that's it. It didn't get up very high at all. Nothing electrical was wet or corroded, everything should be just fine.

Here's a couple quick snapshots I got:

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[frankenstein406]

Get a fan or two blowing through it, maybe unplug the electrical connections and cram them full of vasoline or dielectric grease.

 

[Dylan0123]

I ended up just getting a new alternator and starter. Got the motor back in and she's running great. No problems whatsoever : ) Thanks for the help everyone.