Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Water Damged Repairs, Did it myself

So, it flooded in my area a few months ago, i bought a new car, blah blah blah, and didn't realize how bad it was, so after a few weeks (month and a half) I got around to tearing it all apart, so here are the pictures, I didn't take the pictures of the padding and carpet but here is the inside, kinda feels naked.

Dude, that sucks. Good luck getting the musty smeel out of your car. I had a friend that this happened too in southern Ohio and he used alot of break cleaner, let it dry and a lot of lemon scented soap and water. The break cleaner got rid of the musty smell and the lemon soap got rid of the break cleaner smell.

Kinda cool to see the car with that perspective... no carpet. Hang on to those. They could serve as a great resourse for wiring problems, or e-brake repairs, etc, etc...
I would say scrub the carpet with Tuff Stuff. It took two cleanings to get a Cigar smell out of a car my uncle passed to my father. We didn't take the carpet out either, which made it harder.

back in the early 60's i was in an automotive class in high school... we had a flood in the area and alot of cars under water, so the instructor did a course on what you could do to recover the car.... take out battery, throw it away... remove spark plugs, oil, rebuild carb. drain the trans(mainly standard back then), the rear end(dont have them anymore)...drain the gas tank,, alot of stuff people dont think of and will try to start a car and blow the engine that is full of water.....

Cool, now go buy a bunch of Dynamat, layer the whole floor, and have the quietest Contique ever made

Now that's a roomy interior.

And who the heck are you???? (Tour de Mace)

What the heck is a Tour de Mace?

Maybe it'd be wise to put a small dehumidifer inside the car and let it run (with the windows/doors closed) for a few days?

There's a company that sells replacement carpets for cars. I'm trying to get the info now. Well, I can't get the info because http://www.corral.net is broken right now. If you want it, go to the tech section there and there is an article about replacing the carpet on a Mustang. The company mentioned in that article should have carpet for a Contour.

As far as the electronics go, I'd suggest rinsing them out with distilled water if they got flood water in them.

I've used distilled water to recover computer keyboards that got stuff spilled into them. Rinse off the keyboard, then I let it dry fully for a couple of days and they always worked right after that...

The flood took place only on main rural areas I had to drive through and the time it was in those puddles were once for like 10 second and the second for like 3 or 4 seconds. The padding had a lot of water in it but only in the back part of the car, the trunk had a lot of water also. but the front of the car barely got wet. I chose to pull the whole thing just to make sure it all got dried out and I could get rid of the smell before the 19s when I hopefully will be getting the rest of the money for the car. As for the seats they are perfect, the front carpet and padding is mint. I took the tail light assemplies apart and check the wires into the doors and the wires to the seat belts, they are all dry as can be, check the bottom (inside) of all the doors, they are also dry. So all and all it didn't get to bad.


I thought everyone would enjoy the pics of the stripped car. I might have to put some dynomate in my 99 however, beings it wasn't to bad to take it all out. the worst part was the center console and getting to the drivers seat belt bolt. no room to get at it with any sockets only a torx bit and a 10mm wrench, it took forever.