!! I MESSED UP, WET DASH!!

Hello, So I have driven my 1994 Hiace SuperCustom into a wet ditch. It has been recovered and exterior is without bad damage. These things are hearty. It is drivable so I hesitantly drove it home. I removed the battery when it was in water and removed the air filter before driving.
I am in the process of cleaning the interior. THE MAIN ISSUE. My digital dash has gotten water inside of it. and when driving it did not turn on except the dash lights. WHAT DO I DO?!?!?
The water did not come all the way in but it was on its side and the dash got wet. fuses and most electricals where lucky enough to not get touched. How can I fix the dash/ Is it even fixable?!@?!

Thanks for any help! I'm desperate.
-Z

Hello, and sorry to hear of your woes.

I don’t know about your instruments but I’d treat them and any related wiring as any electronic part that got wet.

There are loads of YT vids on this and basically I’d try to act fast and probably would not have wanted to run the instruments if possible.

I’d suggest you need to remove any contaminants (salts) and moisture / water, ideally using di-ionised water or water distilled from a tumble drier, or 100% ethanol or isopropanol alcohol.

Any moisture is very likely to cause a short or a wiring failure over time. Hopefully a fuse has blown to protect the wiring but unless you act quickly the whole lot might be a rusted mess. Once decontaminated you need to dry or desiccate the wiring, connectors and circuity. There are loads of high-tech or simple ways to do this but drying alone is not likely to prevent subsequent failure if contaminated with ditch water.

My 2p!

HTH!

Water itself doesn’t short out 12v DC electrical wiring. Drive an older car that doesn’t rely on can-bus into a river and the lights and windows will still operate. Water does, however, fry electronics and circuits. If there was even a little moisture in the dash circuit-boards, turning on the ignition and thus connecting power to the dash would indeed likely have fried it.

You can generally even wash electronics with a hose and so long as they’re dried immediately and fully BEFORE they get power, they’ll be fine. That “before” is key.

LH119V wrote:

… water distilled from a tumble drier…

HTH!

Water from a condensor or heat pump dryer is not really distilled in the proper sense nor is it clean. The condensor itself can habour nasty stuff (like any a/c unit) and the water vapour it collects has mostly not reached temperature anywhere close to boiling so still contains impurities. It will also generally have lint and dust mixing into the collector where mould also grows. Nasty stuff overall.

Deionised water can be bought in most supermarkets etc - you can use that as a solvent.
Many digital items can be carefully disassembled, rinsed and dried thoroughly - and will work again.

So I'd try that first. Your main challenge will be to DRY all the little connections to relays etc, so I'd advise running a cold fan and a dehumidifier in it for a week or two, just to help it dry.