Carpet

Hey

Ive got an 88 350 regular cab c1500 and I'm replacing the carpet that was damaged from some water leak. I changed the heater core about 2 months ago to stop the leak and aparently it has stopped, but when I took out the carpet today, it was soaking wet underneath the jute padding. Is this normal, or is there any other place that it can be leaking from. The paint is pretty rusted, and I guess its an indication that the water has been there a while, so I'm guessing all of the leaked water from before just stayed there, but I'm not sure. Now, I'm riding on metal and haven't seen a drop, but I want to make sure no other place can leak before I put the new carpet in. I know about the leak tube for the air conditioner, but water comes out of it from the end of the tube outside the car so I'm assuming its OK. Another question is, what kind of material can I use to clean the rust up on metal that got messed up from the water or is there a good spray I can put down before I lay the carpet, and what are the general layers of carpet that I need to put in my car, i.e. insulation, sound padding, adhesive, etc. ect.

Thanks,
Matthew

I had an 89 k1500 that was getting wet under the drivers side floor mats. The windshield cowl is supposed to drain down to the wheel well, but some of the drainage area was clogges up with debris. The water would then back up and was coming in through the hole for the parking brake cable. I cleaned out the debris and used silicone to seal around the cable a little better and this fixed the problem.

Ya, I'd check around the cowl like cdoogles said.

For the rust, I'm assuming it's just surface rust and isn't real deep in the metal, right? Use some rough sand paper and knock off any chunks of paint/rust that might be bubbling or chipping off. Then just kind of rough up that area and a little ways around it.

Rustolium makes some good paints that stop rust in their tracks. Spray on a few coats of primer, allowing time to dry between coats. Then, use some rugular Rustolium paint and spray on a few coats of that.

You'll be fine with just putting down regular insulation, but there also all kinds of sound dedining material out there if you want to really quiet things down. Then just put down the carpet.

As far as adhesive, you can just use that spray glue stuff and put a few sprays here and there, but not covering the whole area (incase it ever needs to come out again). Then just lay down the carpet the same way the original was, using NO adhesive between the carpet and insulation.

Hope that helps!!