For the first time since i bought the car, I've had the time to remove the carpet try dry it out. I fixed the heater matrix o-ring leak 18 months ago and it was still saturated.

Washed with a hose till foam stopped and water ran clean, but will it ever dry out? It's been in the direct sun all day hanging over a trestle, but still soaking...

If it won't dry in this weather, assuming you've got a similar 32 degrees to me, it'll never dry. It's the thick foam underneath that normally takes a long time to dry out although someone did say driving over it can help to squeeze the water out.

Will keep it in the sun then tomorrow!!!

Mine did dry out fully, in last year's summer soaring heat. But it took more than two full days, full day exposure. The carpet face (did that one first) was fast, the foam part (turned over) was more ... complicated. To help it I would squeeze it a little with my hands (wear gloves if necessary). I would not drive over the carpet or similar "shock" activities, the foam can break or disintegrate, or detach from the carpet backing. I know most people would not notice it, but to me a warped or ruined carpet is a disgrace to a maintained/restored interior ...

Yep it was me who cut the foam out and placed it between 2 boards.

A 1.8 ton Jag got most of the water out.

Darn, speaks of rain most of tomorrow!!!

Allegedly simple heat or sunshine is pretty ineffective and slow at drying the foam. Was told that laying something on it to draw or wick the water out works better.

Certainly seems to be working on the 'orrible silver 1.1 Corsa sat on my drive awaiting disposal as a bereavement sale. Carpets were super squishy but after a couple of weeks of having newspaper laid over them most of the water seems to have been pulled out. Half a Daily Telegraph opened out and held down over the carpet with some suitable paving slab offcuts seems to work well. Certainly when changing the paper its about ready to fall apart.

Clive

i dont know how big the carpets are because i have not done this job but could you put them in the washing machine and spin it out , maybe . just tuck it in around the outside so it doesn't distort

How about using an aquavac to suck water out ?

No! Huge, thick and weigh a ton!

My rear carpet and soundproofing is sitting in a large metal shed which is only partially shaded. It went from sponge-wet to almost dry fairly decently fast a couple of months ago. With this weather it's now properly dry. I'll refit it before the weather changes and it reabsorbs too much from the air again (hopefully).

Tried an aquavac, doesn't really work if soaked. The Corsa newspaper trick is surprisingly effective got a 1L / 3 cyl silver '53 reg with a permanent bulkhead leak, and tend to drive it around with the Telegraph as front mats - rubber backed mats trap wet.

Corsa has a feel to its carpet as if it's tight across the (rear) footwells but with some form of space under it, under the front there is also space to suck out a fair amount. Have had to empty the cannister and start again. Also bailed it out with plastic takeaway tubs before.

The P38s seem to hold more water stuck in the foam than free and dried out foam is still quite dense, so I suppose it doesn't suck through. Fan heater is not much use on it either although it is a good demister in winter.

I have used this method with very satisfactory results:
Place 1in thick layer of old bath towels down on a flat surface, place wet carpet on towels,
place more towels on top, place 1/2 to 3/4 inch plywood on top of carpet, repeatedly drive over the laminate.
Remove towels, dry, repeat as needed, then it will stand a chance of air / sun drying
and you will not tear up the padding.
If you have access to a vacuum pump and a heavy duty plastic bag, you can also give it a good squeeze that way.

Got them dry, it wasn't too bad in the end.

So firstly washed all the coolant out. It was neat as the water had evaporated. Almost oily in texture. I washed out with a lot of clean water from a hose while walking on the foam in wellies.

Then hung to dry in the sun.

No progress after 8 hours other than dripping from gravity so laid out some old towels and put carpet foam side down on them and walked over to squeeze out the water. Moving towel regularly to keep it from sucking the water back in.

Hung back up and repeated hourly all day. Finally after about 8 hours of this it was dry and not blotting any more out onto the towels.

Refitting wasnt as hard as removing, although I did remove the pin from the handbrake cable which was a big mistake as it moved down too far and i ended up needing to pull up using a strand of steel wire - far too hot for that sort of thing.

I've never taken a P38 carpet out but from experience with other cars, Kitchen Roll is cheap and works better than newspaper. Dehumidifiers work in the car if you're patient/dealing with a small spill. I have a large bucket of Damprid that lasted a surprisingly long time and took up lots of water.
I've never tried an industrial type dehumidifier (as used by flood victims) but I'd imagine they'd work really well too.