My dad called me today to say that the passenger footwell of his 82 Pace Car was full of antifreeze. He asked what the best method to get the antifreeze from the carpet was and I recommended that he pull the carpet out and hose it down. He has a few questions and I thought I'd post them here for opinions and advice.

1. Large plastic round cap with a recessed "x" on it. Looks like a phillips head screw. Does it pop off or unscew? He tried unscrewing it with a quarter and it just twists. He doesn't want to break it, so any suggestions?

2. The rear seat belt bolt...Is there a nut under the car like on the 69s or is there a welded nut that remains stationary?

3. When the puddle occurs, is it usually a hose or the core?

Thanks all

 

1. Those are just plugs, they just pop out; seat belt bolts are under there.

2. Welded

3. Generally the core

 

I actually washed my carpet out IN the car. The coolant likely stayed in the passenger side front footwell (might have a slight leak to the driver side), it makes a nice pond. It'll take a few cycles of clean water and fishing that out, but it works and you dont have to diassemble the entire interior of the car.

 

I have a "Green Machine" or "Little Green" by Bissell that works wonderful, Its a little steam cleaner. (Steam used very loosly as it creates no heat). With the hand held wand he could probably suck up most everything and then use a steam cleaner solution to clean up the carpet... It should work depending on how bad it is.

Personally I would remove the trim, the RH seat and the threshold and fold back the carpet to inspect under it for any that may have gotten through, and then suck up that and put a fan on it until it was dry.

John

 

3. Usually the heater core.

I also had a bad heater hose going to the heater core and it leaked just like the core would. So be sure to check the hoses first.

I just replaced my heater core about a month ago.