Removing soggy carpets, some advice required

[obcuz]

I've discovered the soggy carpet syndrome.

I've been through a lot of threads about it and more or less have it sussed, but initially require a bit of advice on a few things.

I will be doing this properly e.g. no shortcuts - but it's a driveway job, the plan is to completely remove the front/rear carpets and undelay, dry out, fix the leak! refit the carpets etc.

Sounds simple enough but.....

How to remove the gear stick console?

How to remove the handbrake console?

Can anybody give a step-by-step instruction on how its done (without breaking anything).

I know the seats will have to come out, four bolts I know, I can see the outer bolt covers underneath, but the inner ones are not so accessible - I may take the car to the local garage and get them to remove the inner ones (just leaving the outer ones) and hopefully the seat will still be attached enough to drive back the half mile journey?

Is there anything else I need to do or should be wary about? any advice appreciated.

Thanks for your time.

 

[bionic]

not being harsh or anything but you need to stop thinking soo hard about the job in hand

just jack the car up and you should be able to get to the bolts without getting under the car and the centre console you should just check over the thing the handbrake surround is a simple pull off the best way to do a job is to check what has to be removed and were and a step by step instruction is not needed as someone may have missed something

 

[Rob]

Hello, look at my ph1 > ph2 dash guide.

The ph1 and 2 bits come out quite similarly. The centre console is very easy to remove, like three screws if that. No complications.

 

[obcuz]

Thank Rob/Bionic

Yes, I know it's not rocket science, but doing this sort of thing for the first time I had some trepedation of breaking clips and so on as these are always a pain to source.

It is not always easy to find how to unclip things - take for instance the pretensioner/airbag plugs, had a close look at these and it was not obvious how they unplug, if you did one of these before, then probably easy-peasy but want to avoid the 'good-yank' method.

Anyway the carpets and under-squelch are out and drying in the garden, the sun is shinning thank god.

The local garage undid the seat bolts inside the tunnel for me which helped - saved me jacking/crawling around underneath -not a good position for a pensioner, the outside ones were easy and I did not meet any further problems except unplugging the airbag cables (yes I disconnected the battery before playing around with these).

In all it took me about 1 1/2 hours to remove the lot, the foam sponge was sodden with a gallon or water - no way would this have dried out in time, so it had to be done.

Tomorrow I will try and source the leak, which I think may be in the the scuttle area, scuttle off and hosepipe method, meanwhile the carpets and sponge are spread around to dry out.

 

[Gary-Clio]

exactly what i did in my ph1 last week . but was it worth it.. ocd so was great to get it immaculate under the carpets aswell . good luck!

 

[bionic]

ah i see were your coming from the connectors under the seat are a pain in the back side and every time i remove a seat i have problems and to be honest im getting close to cutting them totally out and soldering in my own connector block

 

[obcuz]

Just an update on this in case anyone else experiences the same leaky problem.

Got the scuttle panel off today, removed wiper arms/mechanism, washer bottle, etc, got the hose pipe in and could see that the centre section of the scuttle well was filling with water and not draining at all.

Got my hand down the back of the engine bulkhead about in the centre wher the outlet should be, - just below where the sound deadening ends and the heat shield starts, poked my finger into the little hole (like you do) and tickled the rubbery bit, out came the water - nice experience.
Gave it a good flushing through including the two drains at either end and hopefully that is it.
The rubber grommet where the centre drain is, was not as tight as expected, so put some silicon around it, my guess is that the well was filling up and overflowing into a less well sealed area in the scuttle area around the Aircon, time will tell if this is a complete cure, but I wouldn't want to do this often.

The carpets have completely dried, as has the interior excepting the bulkhead lining which was left in place in the car- proped away from the bulkhead to allow air to circulate through it, the sponge underlay has still not dried out after two days in the sun, but think one more day will do it, if anyone thinks their sponge will dry out over time inside the car, think again, these sponges do not give up water easily.

Hope to start putting the car back together tomorrow.