I suppose it depends on how soaked they are. It doesn't hurt to try it. But if they are bad, I clean them up, and then a couple of days later they are locking up. I go back and take it apart, and there is this sticky gummy black stuff all over the shoes. I clean them up again, everything is fine for a couple of days, and then it's back to locking up again. Take them apart, same scenario. Could you ever get them clean enough, not sure how many times it would take. Heating them to drive out the contaminates seems to work though.
So no harm in trying to clean them, but sometimes it just doesn't work.