It looks like the heater core in my 99 V-70 was leaking more and for longer than I thought. It seems the carpet underlayment (the dense foam with the gray plastic coating) has done a very good job of soaking up a bunch of coolant.

It also looks to me that it is not very practical to completely remove the underlayment for rinsing and drying. It is one piece from side to side, and appears that it was installed rather early in the assembly process. For example, before the steering column, rack, and heater blower were installed.

The only practical thing I can think of is to cut it as high above floor grade as I can, clean it, dry it, and glue it back down again.

Anybody have a better idea? Anybody know the trick to removing the rubber foot rest on the driver’s side?

Thanks,
Charley

The foot rest removal is not easy. It slides DOWN and pops off. And it is not an easy pop either.

As for the foam backing, I used newspaper. Not wadded up. Just slide it under the foam pad as far as you can, and then press down on the rubber. I let the newspaper sit over night and drag out the sticky, sorry mess, to be replaced with new sections. A couple of days.

The floor pan covering was installed first, then the rest of the cabin.

I used a normal sized bath tub, simple green, and a brush to clean the carpet. It helped to have a flexible shower wand to rinse it. Cold water only. Let it drip dry, it does dry fast.
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My back feels better when I sit in a Volvo seat

Thanks Klaus,

I've got flat newspaper under it now, but I'm thinking it won't get it out soon enough or thoroughly enough to suit me. I believe some of the ingredients in anti-freeze are the same thing they put in paint to make it dry slower. I'm going to try to do neat cuts in such a way that it should lay back in neatly with some contact cement and maybe some type of serious tape over the cuts.

I had planned on the bathtub routine for the carpets, but I don't think I would have thought of using cold water, so thanks for that too. I might also try my cheap (read not too high pressure) electric spray washer.

It did seem to me that the foot rest needed to go up or down to get it off, but left to my own devices, I would have guessed UP and then broken it.

When I know, I will tell you if cutting the underlayment was a good plan or the road to ruin.

Charley

Before you cut the rubber...

Mine was cracked and I tried clear packing tape to cover the crack. The tape wouldn't stick a day later. I tried glue in the crack (supposed to glue anything to anything, it wouldn't bond.

So experiment before you make the cut.

Yes, antifreeze doesn't dry well. And the rubber doesn't like to be cut. So it was days of newspaper for me.

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My back feels better when I sit in a Volvo seat

Klaus,

The die is cast. I started cutting a few minutes after my last posting. My rubber may be worse than yours. Besides being cracked, some of it was already chunking off in pieces. The underlayment is spending the night in the bath tub, and I cleaned the carpet with laundry soap, a brush, and my little pressure washer.

After everything dries, I think I might look at Lowes/Home Depot for something like thin rubber hall runner to place on top of the underlayment. To bond it, I may test something like Liquid Nails. We will see. I'll let you know how it works out.

At least I can cut some indoor/outdoor carpet scraps I have around here to throw on the floorboards so I can use the car while everything dries.

Thanks,
Charley

Well, after 5 years, I thought I should put the finish on this thread. It turned out to be more than a year before I got the underlayment and carpet back into the car. For a while I just threw in some indoor / outdoor carpet that I had, and drove it that way. Then one day, trying to leave home after a flood had washed out the road, I bashed a baseball size hole in the oil pan. So, I had bigger problems than the carpet and underlayment.

After washing the antifreeze out of the underlayment in the bath tub, it didn’t want to dry. I think maybe it is closed cell foam, which once saturated, doesn’t want to dry. I hung it out in the hot sun for 5 days. It would seem dry, but if you pressed it with a tissue, the tissue would end up wet. Finally I locked it in a small bathroom with a dehumidifier for about 3 days. That did the trick and it was finally dry.

To patch up the broken rubber cover that is on the underlayment, I cut the broken pieces out so that they had straight edges instead of jagged edges. I went to a home supply store and bought the most flexible peel and stick “linoleum” floor tiles that I could find. I cut them into patches to fit the areas missing the rubber facing, and they did stick into place, and were about the same thickness.

To cover the joints between the patches and original material, I used the peel and stick type of duct tape that is made of heavy aluminum foil. Don’t confuse this with the grey cloth duct tape.

Then, to put the underlayment back into the car, I taped my cut joints with the same aluminum duct tape.

So, it did all work out in the end.

Thanks for your advice, Klaus. Maybe this thread will be a bit more useful to someone in the future now that it relates the conclusion. Better late than never I suppose.

Charley

Thank you for the follow up! It is helpful in many ways, especially using a dehumidifier in a closed small space. I like the sticky linoleum repair... easy and cheap.
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Keeping it running is better than buying new