Sunday, November 25, 2007 - 08:57 pm, by: Tom Nicol(Goosemonger)
I finally bought a moulded carpet from http://www.knoxautocarpets.com.au/ the other day, I considered getting it professionally installed, but it was gonna cost me more than the carpet it's self, even at mates rates. Plus you can't put a price on the satisfaction you feel when you finish a well done job yourself. As someone had said on here before, it does take a whole day to install a new carpet, so I suggest starting on a Saturday morning so you have the Sunday if something goes wrong. So anyway, I began the job with the old man bright and early Saturday - I thought I'd snap a few pics along the way so if anyone else is planning on doing the same thing they can get a heads up on what to expect.
The whole job was fairly simple, just time consuming. We pulled out the back and front seats then stood and wondered what kind of creature could make stains like those down the sides of the front seats.
Next, out comes the old, disgusting carpet! We didn't remove all of the centre console trim because it's not really in the way, the carpet tucks back in under it easily.
Along with the carpet I bought some sound proofing underlay, I wanted to lay a huge layer down over the whole floor, but there are too many bumps and lumps, so we cut out rectangles and laid them in between, which turned out to be good because it keeps the carpet nice and even.
Note: If you buy this underlay (with a layer of bitumen in the middle for sound proofing) make sure you have a decent stanley knife with a lot of spare blades! We even used a hacksaw at one point...
Next, in goes the rear part of the carpet. This is where you need your stanley knife again, there are a lot of very fiddly holes to cut, one for each of the five bolts that hold the seat in, a slit for the seat power cable, and make sure you open a hole for the air vent! You don't want spontaneously combusting carpet now do you? There are also some holes for the rear seat clips you need to cut. (Not to mention holes in the front part for foot rest/hand brake/console.)
Here's a close up pic of the air vent hole that needs to be cut.
Aaaand here's a pic of the seat bolts, at this point the front part of the carpet is laid down and all tucked in. The seat bolts are very important to get right the first time, we cut the holes thinking they would be big enough, but they weren't and carpet fluff got stuck in the screws and we ended up having to take the seat back out. So cut DECENT holes for your bolts!
Holes like these ones. Also when you bolt the seats back in, start at the inner front side. (The one closest to the stereo) Otherwise they don't like going in.
All done!... Except for the trim.
The door sil trim is the most frustrating part. It took me a while to figure out what I was even looking at once I pulled it up. Basically, the carpet is stapled to short plastic strips, those plastic strips snap in to metal clips which snap on to the body of the car and they also hold the door seal in place. Then the nice plastic trim that covers it all snaps in to the other side of the metal clip. Uhh you will see what I mean when you do it yourself. We used a heavy duty office stapler to attach the new carpet to the plastic strips, but glue or something strong will work.. the stapler was very awkward to use, but it got the job done. I used 12mm staples. Also the best way to do all this once it's stapled is to sit all the clips on the car (they have special slots) and build from there. And be careful where you staple/glue the carpet to the plastic! It matters where it sits.
All done! Now you need to dye those little corners of carpet on your doors...
Sunday, November 25, 2007 - 09:14 pm, by: Tom Nicol(Goosemonger)
I used VHT Spray Vinyl/Carpet Dye to colour the door carpet, it's true what they say, this stuff is brilliant! However the can I had broke a seal or something, so my hands ended up black... but I got the job done. You DO need a stiff bristled brush, as the instructions say. Rather than pulling off the door trim to remove the carpet, I just masked off the carpet and went to town with the spray paint.
Give it a decent brush down, if not a wash before you start dying.
It's straight forward painting, just give it a few times over to cover it all, I did two coats in the end, brushing to spread the dye in between coats
All done! However I'm thinking I'll need to dye the door sil trim, anyway that's it for the carpet!
Thursday, November 29, 2007 - 04:50 pm, by: Adam Peterson(President)
Tom, i have the same aftermarket carpet in my car. The previous owner installed it and glued it OVER the existing carpet ! Needless to say its ••••••• horible and looks like crap ! So much so im after a replacement spruce carpet all together.
Its good to see you went to the proper trouble to do it correctly. Well done !
Friday, April 18, 2008 - 06:36 am, by: Kelly O'Brien(Kelly)
I got new moulded carpet about 6 months ago and we originally stapled it down (with one of those upholstery staple guns) along the inner sill and up where your feet rest - there are plastic bits there on the original carpet too - and most of them came undone just from getting in and out of the car. We then tried some of that really strong glue - like marine grade (we also used it to glue carpet down in the boat and it works fine because it's flat) and it has also come undone just from getting in and out of the car... My other problem is with VHT vinyl dye...we did my whole interior with it, and it looks fine, we also did the little carpet trims on the doors (like 6 months ago aswell) and about 2 months ago I had a problem with a water leak under my door where the carpet trims got a little bit wet, so I got a towel to dry them off a bit, and the dye just washed straight out! It wasn't even that wet! I used a scrubbing brush to get the dye right through aswell and it had plenty of time to dry. I know I have heard some things about problems with dyeing synthetic carpet...It doesn't hold the colour. I have a little secret idea...My bf wanted to dye his Supra carpet from grey to black and he didn't want to use the vinyl dye because of what happened to my car so I suggested BLACK HAIR DYE (trust me, I know that once you get it on carpet, no matter what you do, it WILL NOT wash off, providing you buy a PERMANENT hair colour) and to do ALL his carpet cost just under $100 and it's good, because he got to keep the factory carpet AND it looks awesome, and is nice and soft. You have to take the whole carpet out though and hose the dye off once it has been left to develop. Just thought this might be a handy idea!
Friday, April 18, 2008 - 01:12 pm, by: Kelly O'Brien(Kelly)
Yeah I will take some for you, I don't think I have a before shot of the carpet though. I recommend buying some really good gloves if you're gonna use hair dye though - maybe washing up gloves...we used those thin latex ones and because we massaged the dye into the carpet, the gloves tore a bit and it stains your skin - we still have traces of it on our hands. Oh...and I forgot to mention it is ALOT easier AND CHEAPER if you go and buy the hair developing liquid (comes in a big bottle) and the colour cream separate i.e. don't buy the prepackaged L'oreal stuff or whatever, go to PRICE ATTACK and you can get like a 1L bottle of the developer and then you buy some tubes of colour and mix it up in a container (like a small ice-cream container) they'll be able to tell you what ratio of developer to colour to use...I know it's 1 to 1.5 but I can't remember which is 1 and which is 1.5. Oh...and one last thing, we used around 8-10 tubes of the colour cream. They don't usually have that many of the one brand but we bought a couple of different brands and it didn't seem to matter. The good thing about the hair dye is, after you've let it develop and you're washing it off (after about 30-40mins) if there are faint patches or anything, you just go back over it! I wish my factory carpet was in good condition so I could have just dyed mine
Joshua Rao DieHard WA JZZ30 vvti GT-L & JZZ31(For Sale)
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