So, It was raining this morning and I threw something in my trunk. On my way to work I noticed that my speakers started to crackle and pop. I immediately turned off my stereo, pulled over and shut the car off. After opening up the trunk to look at my amp I noticed there was a small amount of water on top of it. Great. Soaked up the water with my fleece, unhooked the remote turn-on and the RCA inputs and left my stereo off on my way to work. Got home and unhooked everything, took my amp out and saw there was some corrosion in the hex-heads of the speaker terminals. I took the bottom panel and sides off the amp to expose the internals and hopefully dry it out for a few days. Other than the corrosion on the heads of the speaker-screws everything appears to look OK.

So, my questions are - Is there anything else I need to do to try and salvage this thing? Anybody have experience with this before? Am I just screwed and will have to buy a new amp? Or can I just let this air out for a while and put a fan on it? Its a JL 500/5 if that helps.

 

id give it a day or so to dry out.

you can usually get a quick splash of water on electronics and they are ok, but sometimes they water gets in the right spot and thats it for that amp.

I would disconnect the wires going to your speakers/sub from the amp, and then find a used separate speaker to test with.

it doesnt have to be a fancy speaker, find a used 5 1/4 or 6 1/2 that will play most frequencies

 

Good idea, I never thought of that. That way when I try it again I don't risk damaging my speakers. I can just use my stock Bose speakers.

I opened it up last night to let it dry and will probably let it sit for a couple days. Conveniently, I'll be out of town all weekend and won't be driving my car anyway, so maybe on Sunday or Monday night I'll give it a whirl.

 

cool, keep us updated

 

This will sound a little crazy... take the backplate off of the amp, put it in a large container, fill it and the amp with uncooked white rice, and cover it up for a day. Repeat one more time for another day with new rice.

Worked for an old Alpine V12 back in the day, customer said trash it and I ended up getting a free amp out of the deal

The rice will absorb a considerable amount of the water. For a bad drenching you will need to use alcohol before and after and sometimes they are just too far gone... the good thing is you shut it down immediately. Good luck!

 

trust boxoloy's advice, i do the same thing for cell phones. works like a charm most of the time so long as you don't try to turn it on until it's completely dry again.

 

+1 for rice trick

 

Interesting......yeah, sounds crazy but maybe it will work. Its been a couple days and I haven't had a chance to hook it back up. Maybe I'll try the rice trick overnight tonight. Thanks guys, I'll post my result in a couple days.

 

should be fine after drying

lay it in the sun for 10 hours

 

Update - Finally had time to put it back together and hook it up this past weekend. Everything works fine! Thanks for the help fellas. Now I just have to remember to be extra careful when opening my trunk in the rain.