Lots and lots of fans would be the best thing, and everything everyone else has allready said. good luck!
All fans are going to do is move the water around, I would say put a dehumidifier in the car, roll the windows down and cover the car well, this will form a cocoon of dry air around the whole car and literally pull the moisture out
I have a more experience than I ever wanted with salt water immersion. We live on the ocean in Alaska and in 3007 our commuter boat sunk during the night. A friend pulled it the next morning and we towed it to town and flushed both motors with fresh water. We drained all oil and restarted the motors to get them hot and to remove all water. They did start and run but within a matter of hours the generator, starter and ignition all failed. All of the electronics (radar, chart plotter, radios, etc) failed immediately, (as do our cell phones when we drop them in salt water) The good news is that we were able to save everything but the electrical and electronics. I took the boat apart, washed it all with fresh water, wire brushed all the aluminum on the inside and put it all back together. The original wiring harness off the motors was saved and still works fine 5 years later. I rewired everything else and it has caused no problems. We even saved the computers as they are sealed units. There are products at the local marine stores like "Salt Away" that would be good to use when flushing everything. With something like a complete car I would dismantle, flush with fresh water and salt away and then rebuild with a good rust preventive primer. I would have no fear of a dismantled and rebuilt engine, trans, and diff if disassembled, cleaned, painted and reassembled. Its a lot of work but when you get done it will be better than before. If you do a quick and dirty clean up you will have problems forever. The ocean doesn't know the difference between a flooded boat or a flooded Ford so they need to be treated the same. Its up to you to determine the final result but if you are diligent you can end up with a car that is as good or better than before. My boat is now waaaaaaaay better than it was prior the sinking. Good luck
I think I would be so concerned about salt water that I would be taking all of the door panels, seat, carpet, etc out of the car and high pressure everything left. Inside the doors, all the nooks and crannies. I'd spend a whole day doing this before trying to dry anything out. Good luck. It would be interesting to see more photos and hear about what you find as you go. Posted from the TJJ App for iPhone & iPad
Not a bad idea even if it was fresh water. I'd pull all of the interior out that was below water and at least set it where it could get air to it to dry. Once I had it out I'd flush the thing out good and then work on drying that out. The main thing is to be proactive and not reactive as to what needs to be done. It's better to pull it further apart than you might need to and do a bit more than it is to wait to see what happens. Which reminds me I need to pull all the wheels of my boat trailer and clean and pack the bearings before I need to buy bearings for four wheels again.
I bought a '65 Ford wagon that was completely submerged in hurricane of 1972. Swapped the motor/trans from a ford wagon I had, removed entire interior and went to Florida for 2 weeks. Came back and reassembled and ended up putting 85,000 miles on it. Only thing that went bad was the power booster. All electrical operated Ok. Found no water in brakes or rear end. Just saying....
If it was mine, and I valued it very highly, I would tear it to bits as fast as I could and clean and rinse everything. I am talking about the mechanical parts, motor, trans and differential. I never had much luck with just changing fluids if it was sandy silty water, I can only imagine salt could only be worse.
I agree on the seriousness of the salt water problem, if it's been dunked in salt water it's got salt into every nook and cranny, every crease in the body panels, and it's going to stay there and rot the car from the inside out unless you get it out... Now. I went to an abandoned vehicle auction last year, and there was a little, recent model, Mercedes Benz coupe there, way O/T for here of course, except that it had taken a bath in the ocean, and the owners just walked away and left it. Even the insurance company didn't want it back. Good luck, Glen.
Yeah...I know Billy did a lot of welding on the car, so it would be a good idea to remove the entire interior, flush all the backsides of everything with fresh water, dry immediately, and then seal up the bare metal and welds with POR-15 or something to prevent future corrosion. I'd thin it out and drill some holes and shoot it into innaccessible panels, like the rockers, as well. Prevent the filler from bubbling up and ruining the bodywork. if there were a lot of pinholes in the welds, it might be too late for that, though. In that worst case, grind and refill. Good luck, I feel for'ya!
Guys, I know you all said "I would tear it down as soon as possible". Unfortunately, most folks that had their collector car under water also had their entire possesions under water or have nothing left. We don't know what extent the damage was individually, but have been in a similar situation, I would suggest to get your family, home and then collector crap taken care of in that order. Hopefully, all were insured but things can be replaced. If all is ok with family and friends, then we as a car community can always come together and help out with the rebuilding of a hobby. God Bless and take care.
dehumidifier good......roll windows down.....bad. You will just be dehumidifying the whole planet, closed windows will concentrate the dehumidifyer on the wet interior. Sorry, smartass I know, but in this case a correct smartass.. Personally I would go this way. Then a complete steam clean over a pit, followed by a lot of Gibbs for the small crevices, followed by lots of wax products. ...and a christmass tree. Oh....... and that oil that you just changed........change it and the filter again after about 3-4 minutes of warm to hot running......you may need to do this yet again if there is any sign of milky oil after the second time. As stated above ....don't ignore your trans and diff either........drain and refill. Whatever time and money you spend now will determine how long your car takes to do what it really wants to do...turn back into raw mineral iron.
Ok... I just read a couple of posts that came up while while I was typing.......of course family is first.....I guess I meant once thats cool.....don't dilly dally with the car.
Why did you leave it behind,if I had to evacuate my house the running old cars would be leaving with me and the late models would stay behind since they could be replaced much easier.
Add in...remove all brake cylinders and tear down quick...remove all upholstery, trunk panels, etc. Hose everything down over and over, repeat the next day get some engine oil into all pinchweld and overlap areas you'll have to fight that oil later when you paint, but you need it now. Then when you do get painted...re-oil all pinch welds and such, allow oil ti spread on panels inside door and so forth. I really think oil is the only answer for the million places you cannot reach.
Add in...remove all brake cylinders and tear down quick...remove all upholstery, trunk panels, etc. Hose everything down over and over, repeat the next day get some engine oil into all pinchweld and overlap areas you'll have to fight that oil later when you paint, but you need it now. Then when you do get painted...re-oil all pinch welds and such, allow oil ti spread on panels inside door and so forth. I really think oil is the only answer for the million places you cannot reach. Probably run and re-drain engine as suggested, then leave it empty and as taped up as possible while you are hosing the tin.
I lost a car to a flood many years ago. I tried to save it but that water gets places that we can not. I took it all apart and after it dried it smelled like sewer. The insurance totaled the car. Don't settle with the insurance till you are satisfied that gremlins will not haunt you in the future.
This is very good read since I am doing the same thing for an old co-worker he lived in Mystic Island Tuckerton NJ and the water was about the same height as yours, same thing motor full, everything. I got the fluids changed and had it running on 2+2 as the tank is full of water.Just wanted to get oil around in the motor gonna pull the tank tomorrow. So I will be tuned into this post for a little while. This guy is older and wrote the car off felt sorry for him , so here i am. Dave
When you get done with all the work you will see why Ins. companies usually total a late model car when the water ( especally salt) gets above the door sill area. The Ins. companies know the problems never stop. Our old cars with less ecectronics are a little more forgiving. Hopefully you Sandy victims can get right on it and save your cars. I would think a place to live will come first though.
I bought an '87 Mustang that was a flood car from Virginia several years ago. It too was salt water. The wiring and electrical issues were the worst problems. The connections kept failing years after the car was back on the road, and the water only got about 8" above the rockers. The mechanicals were never a problem after changing all the fluids. The electrical was a whole other story.
Back in '85 when hurricane gloria hit Long Island, I was building an OT '66 Mustang coupe. I lived one house from the water on a canal. The car was in the rebuilding stage and was barely a roller. Thank God the engine was at the machine shop. I took all my tools, the clothes washer and dryer and everything else I wanted to save and loaded them into a van. Chained the Mustang to the back and hauled it all to high ground. when I got back to the house after it was all over, the high water mark in my garage was five feet. Ounce of prevention... Good luck with it whichever way you decide to go. I hope all your family was safe in the storm. Andy
We had a "rebuilder" that used to bring a lot of flood cars into town. They weren't hard to get running for a while, but then the problems started showing up. Mostly it was electrical connections and smell at first and just got worse from there. The only way I would try to save a flood car would be to take the car completely apart and reassemble it from scratch after cleaning, rewire it, new upholstery, etc. Only you know if the car is worth it to you.
A good friend of mine bought a '63 Corvette roadster years ago that had been submerged (He bought it for almost nothing). He disassembled the entire car, cleaned everything, then reassembled it and had fun with it.
Besides the water and salt, a big problem is microbial. The car needs to be disinfected, just like a flooded home needs to be disinfected. I was disassembling a door panel on my Merc and caught a whiff of puke smell. Following my nose, I found some chalky residue inside the arm rest. It had to have been there for more than 25 years (by the car's known history) and it still smelled like it was a day old. It doesn't go away on its own.
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