by David Tong of Big Bert’s Professional Detailers

 

After the onslaught of Typhoon Ondoy, thousands of car owners are left with flood-damaged vehicles and there’s simply not enough dealerships and independent stores to service all damaged units.

This write-up is meant to be performed immediately after you can gain access to your flooded vehicle. As most will probably realize, flood water isn’t exactly fresh water entering the car. It’s a disgusting mix of water, soil, oil, trash, human/animal waste, plants, among others. Needless to say, NONE of these belong to your vehicle and you should get rid of it as soon as you can, even if you do plan to have your car cleaned professionally.

Unfortunately, most detailing shops and gas stations will be jam packed for weeks and it is not advisable for you to wait until a slot is available before you actually do something to clean your vehicle. While I do personally co-own a detailing shop in the Philippines (www.bigberts.com), we can only serve so much within a small time-frame and it’s simply logic and wise to do some major cleaning as soon as possible. I still advice you to bring your car to a mechanic, electrician, detailer, and upholsterer (in that order) before using your car normally, however, but until you can get an appointment you have to get started – NOW.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The instructions below are based on my personal experiences of restoring flooded vehicles, my knowledge as a car owner/enthusiast and a professional detailer. Follow the instruction at your own risk. Big Bert’s Professional Detailers and I will not be responsible for any consequential damage, injury, or mishaps that may occur during your process of cleaning your automobile. If you’re unsure about ANY of the steps below, do not continue. This article is not a substitute for professional, on-site service personnel’s advice and recommendations.

Pre-requisites:

1. You have to be prepared and organized, and only tackle jobs/tasks you’re sure you can handle or have performed before. Most of the jobs listed in this article are simple enough to be completed with basic tools and cleaning agents, but if you have any doubts on any of the listed jobs, don’t do it, just skip to the next simple item you’re comfortable with.
2. Disconnect the battery before beginning. No excuses, do this first.
3. Prepare your tools, don’t go fumbling around for tools while working, have the complete tool set in front of you before working. Also, use the right tools, don’t use a pair of pliers to remove a bolt, for example, you’ll strip the bolt and end up with a bigger problem.
4. Label and bag – Work on small sections at a time. If you plan to remove the seats, use some masking tape or marker and write “Seat bolts) or something on the bag and place the appropriate spare parts removed in that bag. It may seem unnecessary at first, but as any DIYers know, you’ll always wonder where that extra screw came from. If you must, get a piece of paper and do a simple diagram marking where the screw holes are. A lot of hidden areas may not be easily visible and you may miss out on a hole or two. A simple sketch will give you an idea where you took out the original screw from.
5. Be careful when removing big/heavy items such as door panels, seats, etc. Seats have sharp metal rail edges at its base, it’s easy to make a deep gouge on the paint or door panel during removal.
6. Use gloves. You’ll bound to get cut or scraped, just get one of those cotton gloves and protect yourself. You’ll need a pair of safety goggles as well. If you feel dizzy or unwell, stop.
7. Have at least one large battery-powered light. Those 12-24″ battery opearated fluorescent tubes are great, but so are regular work lamps.
8. Clean as you go. As mentioned earlier, work in small sections. Unless you’re familiar with dismantling your interior (I’m sure many DIY audiophiles are more comfortable at this), it’s best to remove one panel, clean it up, dry it, before moving to the next panel. It can be very intimidating if you’ve dismantled everything and having to clean them all at the same time. Odds of parts missing will be higher if you work on a larger scale.
9. For the mechanicals, just DON’T EVEN ATTEMPT to start the car. I know it’s instinct and “wishful thinking” that despite the flooded state of your car, you hope that it’ll run fine. Odds are against you, however. There are a lot of seams, crevices, nooks and crannies that water can enter and contaminate your fluids or enter areas that should never see a drop of water to begin with. The simple act of attempting to turn an engine can ruin your engine if water has entered your cylinder, or your automatic transmission failing permanently when contaminated with water.
10. Same thing with electricals, just like flooded mechanical items, a simple surge of low-voltage can short circuit your electronics and end up with a very expensive parts repair. Most computer boxes cost P40,000-80,000 each, not to mention the mandatory replacement of the supplementary sensors. The same goes with radios, lights, dash lights, etc.
11. Don’t attempt to drive the car. Your brakes could very well be seized or too flooded for the pads to grip. Your lights may not work, your steering could lose its power-assist, and so forth. Don’t drive the car until a qualified mechanic assures you of a complete checkup and repair.
12. If you plan to clean the areas behind the wheel and the underside, go buy a set of safety jack stand. NEVER work under the car with your car jacks as the only support.

Electrical:

Remove the battery, as mentioned, and the first thing you do is to check your fuse boxes (in the engine bay and inside your car). Make note of which fuse popped as that particular piece of equipment may have shorted out and it’s best to check the offending part independently before attepting to replace the fuse.

You’ll need A LOT of contact cleaner. I’m not sure how easily available it is right now in Manila, but if you can get Philips or Wurth contact cleaners, then go buy at least 3 cans of those. If the part you’re cleaning is heavily caked with mud, you can use clean distilled water before using contact cleaner to clean and dry out the circuitboards or harnesses.

You’ll need to clean all harnesses. These are the clip-like plastic things with a bunch of wires attached to it. You’ll need to get a stiff toothbrush or something with contact cleaner to thoroughly clean each port/hole on both the male and female side of the harness.

The easily accessible ones are often the fuseboxes, the power door/window assembly (if you’ve removed the door panel), etc.

Remove the headlights and tail lights, as well as any exterior lights, if you can. They’re pretty easy to remove, you’ll probably need to drain them from flood water and rinse them out. Once mud has caked or corroded the reflectors of headlights, you will need to replace them as they can’t be cleaned or scrubbed.

Speaking of lights, do not reuse your headlight bulbs, they WILL pop if you use them again as halogen bulbs cannot have any contaminants on the glass tube. Even oil from your fingers will damage the tube.

Interior:

Some pointers first:

1. For soap, use dishwashing soap if possible. They’re quite strong, but they also rinse off A LOT faster and cleaner than laundry detergents.
2. DO NOT USE FABRIC SOFTENER OR PLAIN BLEACH, use color-fast bleach on upholstery.
3. Mix a little disinfectant to your soap solution.
4. Buy A LOT of cheap toothbrushes, painter’s brush (cut down to 1″ length) various sizes, cleaning brushes (including toilet brushes with long handles)
5. Buy a lot of towels. Good Morning cotton towels are fine, there are a lot of terry cloth available as well. Do not use flannel (pranella) or those round cloths sold on the streets, they’re not absorbent and are poor scrubbing cloths. If you can buy bulk, all the better, just cut it yourself.
6. Buy cotton buds for tight nook and crannies.
7. Buy a spray bottle or two. I suggest you get at least 3 as most plastic bottle sprayers fail quite easily.
8. Buy a rubber chamois, these things can absorb fluids quickly, remember not to use them to wipe, just use them to absorb water.

Upholstery

Start with the seats, the front seats are often held onto the chassis with four large #12 bolts. The rear seat often can be popped out easily, and the rear backrest will require a couple of bolts to be removed as well.

Remove the rear parcel shelf (rear-deck). Even if water didn’t reach that high, you have to clean it as the condensation of flood water in your interior has already settled on top of all porous surfaces of your vehicle.

Finally, with the seats removed, you can carefully pop-off the plastic garnishes on each of the four running boards to remove the carpet itself. Note that some parts of your carpet may be wrapped around the center console, in that case, you’ll need to remove the shifter and the center console before you can remove the carpet.

You can then remove the glove compartment, which is often held onto by just 2-4 Philips screws. Removing the glove compartment will often expose a black plastic box underneath your dash, that’s your AC evaporator. If your evaporator has obvious sign of water entry, then your AC system needs to be cleaned and flushed, do not attempt to use your AC.

Doors

You have to remove all the door panels. Door panels are often held onto by a screw or two, they’re mainly secured by pressure using plastic clips around the door panel shell. Carefully pop the panel off AT THE POINT OF THE PLASTIC CLIPS, I advice you use a dull fork or a flat screwdriver wrapped with a cloth to do so for leverage. Be patient, you’ll hear a loud pop, it’s normal as the noise is just echoing inside the hollow door panel chamber.

You’ll notice that your door will be “tied” to a wiring loom, you’ll need to disconnect the wiring harness from the power window/lock switch assembly.

After removing the door panels, you’ll probably see a soaked speaker, a dirty piece of plastic surrounded by goo, and a muddy interior metal surface. If you’ve availed aftermarket *scam* rustproofing, sorry, you’ll have to spend a lot more time getting the mud and dirt off your dirty interior door panel than a bare painted/primered sheet metal.

To remove that clear plastic sheet, you simply grab hold to a corner and pull the sheet in FAST, SHARP tugs. Do not pull it slowly as the goo with stretch and you’ll make a mess. Just do short 4-6″ pulls with swift motions, clean the plastic, and set it aside. You’ll need this sheet to protect your door panel from moisture afterwards.

Remove all speakers as well. Chances are, they’re dead as most speaker components are made of paper or cloth (not just the surround and cone, but the suspension of the speaker as well). Be ready to replace them.

Seatbelt

You then need to remove the seatbelt assembly. Again, there’s a plastic garnish covering the seatbelt mechanism and if you remove that, you’ll see a big bolt holding the base of the seatbelt retraction unit. Remove that as well as the pivot bolt on the upper pillar. Do the same thing for the rear seatbelts.

The seatbelts should be replaced as it’s not safe to use a water-damaged seatbelt assembly. In any case, if you wish to clean it up, pull out the entire seatbelt and clean the strap thoroughly. At the end of the retractor unit, see if you can clean out the mechanism using WD40, careful not to spray cleaners onto the belt itself. As mentioned, I advice you to replace the seatbelt assemblies instead of cleaning them.

You’re almost there, 2/3 of the interior has been stripped by now.

Dashboard

The dashboard is an area I don’t advice anyone to remove unless you’ve done it before. It’s incredibly hard to replace with all the small screws, hidden access, wire loom and other complex stuff behind it. You can still clean many areas of the dash, however.

First, you remove the obvious items such as the ash tray. If you can, remove the radio as well. Newer cars will have a harder time doing this will all the computerized climate control blocking the way, but if you can’t do it, it’s OK.

Access the dashboard from underneath. Since you no longer have seats to bother you, you can lie down and reach for the large, flat surfaces behind the dash and clear out any junk visible.

I suggest you leave the rest to a qualified electrician to deal with. You can have them dismantle the dash gauge cluster, radio, AC controller and clean the exposed areas and wirelooms afterwards. The electrician probably won’t clean it for you, so be prepared to pay for the dismantling while still having to do the cleaning yourself.

Trunk/Interior Metal

The trunk is very simple, the molded carpets surround the trunk are easily removable via the push-clips. Remove the board for your spare tire (this thin fiberboard has to be replaced) and the carpet. You’ll find a rubber stopper near the bottom of your spare tire well. That’s a drain hole, you can remove that (it’s quite stiff) and just hose down your entire trunk and allow the water to drain like a basin.

The interior passenger flooring also has drain holes, if you can remove it, you can safely (but carefully, to avoid splashing more water to the dash) hose down the door panels and interior flooring. Wipe dry immediately. For hinges, power window mechanisms, lock mechanisms, spray WD40 then use white/lithium grease to lubricate the moving joints.

Your last problem is the ceiling or headliner. You can remove the headliner but it’s often quite difficult to replace with a single person. If the flood water didn’t reach the ceiling, you can get away with a good cleaning using standard carpet shampoo foam and a wet/dry vac cleaner. If it got wet, replace the entire headliner as it is not repairable.

Exterior:

With the exterior, unless physical damage is present such as dents, broken glass, etc, most of the grime is only on the surface and a good wash will do, however, you’re no longer dealing wiht just the exterior surface of the car now. The interior metal panels of your car are exposed to all the grime as well, so make sure you’ve cleaned the interior panels as discussed earlier.

You can simply give the exterior a good body wash, but pay close attention to the door jams (where the hinges are), especially where the front doors meet the fenders. Clean that thoroughly.

Most cars have a black plastic cover around the wiper arms. Try to remove that plastic panel and you’ll see that the whole area underneath acts like a draining system for water flowing down from your windscreen and roof. Make sure you remove any large particles (like leaves) before hosing it down to prevent the large particle to clog the drain.

The areas behind the bumpers will have tons of debris. If you can remove the bumper, go ahead, if not, just like the dash, you can just contort yourself and clean it by feel.

Spend extra time cleaning all the gaps around lights, moldings, window/glass seals, etc.

Remove the wheels and clean your wheels inside out, clean your suspension as well. At this point, you can clean your brakes using water then use brake cleaners (in cans) to finish up the job. With the wheels removed, you can reach quite a bit of the underside area of the car. REMEMBER TO USE JACK STANDS!

Engine:

DO NOT ATTEMPT TO START/TURN THE ENGINE.

Remove the air filter and the box first, the box is held onto by 2 bolts or so, it shouldn’t be that difficult.

You’ll probably see a sensor box thing right after the air filter, that’s your air flow meter and it’s a very sensitive piece of equipment, just spray it with contact cleaner and have your mechanic run a diagnostic on it later on.

Clean the area underneath the air box. You might want to remove the coolant reservoir as well, in most cars, it’s just a clip-on plastic bottle.

Check all your fluids. Oil and water don’t mix, so if your fluids are contaminated, it’s clearly visible on if there’s water at the bottom of the reservoir or the dipstick. Regardless, ALL flooded vehicles should have a thorough fluid change anyway, contaminated or not.

Replace spark plugs and filters as well, but you can leave that to your mechanic.

Clean out all the debris surrounding the engine. Most areas around the engine are safe to hose down with the exception of the alternator or any piece of equipment with a wiring harness around it. Cover those areas with ample amount of cloth and plastic before hosing down the engine bay. Go slow, use a long PAINTER’S BRUSH while cleaning, don’t rush as you may accidentally pull out a small hose or wire if you’re not careful. It’s not a toilet bowl, clean carefully.

By now, your car should be safe to store until it’s time to tow it to your mechanic. That’s about the end of your responsibility.

What now?

While the car is with your mechanic, send all your interior upholstery parts to your detailer for a thorough cleaning. Always choose a shop that offers upholstery extraction machine cleaning. If you’re only sending it to a gas station for a laundry and sun-dry service, you might as well do it yourself. The foam material on cars are thick, it’ll take ages for it to thoroughly dry up under the sun. A qualified and well-equipped detailing shop will have a machine to facilitate quick cleaning and thorough drying as well. By the time your car is serviced by the mechanic and electrician, your upholstery should be ready to go for installation. Do expect the detailer to charge you extra for installation, it takes a while to install interior panels correctly and labor isn’t free, of course, you can take the cleaned items and install it at your own leisure if you wish.

Your mechanic won’t need any of the interior parts you’ve removed other than the driver’s seat. A relatively clean engine bay will allow your mechanic to work faster and not having to deal with mud and grime when diagnosing your car as well. You might as well ask your mechanic if he can clean and recharge your AC system as well. Be willing to pay extra for them to clean the blower and air ducts behind your dash, you wouldn’t want to be sniffing garbage whenever your AC is on.

Once your mechanic has restored your car to good running order, time to send the car to an electrician for a check-up. Let them know if you’ve found any blown fuse or suspected faulty electronics. If you have the budget for replacement radios/speakers and other accessories, now is a good time to give it to the electrician to install.

If you’re fortunate, your car should be back to running condition by now. You still spent quite a bit in repairs and restoration, but at least you know that a lot of the tasks were done right as each service provider (mechanic/electrician/detailer) didn’t have to deal with problems unrelated to their field of expertise.

The process is hard and disheartening, but as you tackle the problem systematically, you’ll understand your car a lot better and you’ll be delighted to know that you played a big part in restoring your once submerged vehicle to a normal, running automobile.

Good luck!

Dave T.