Installing new carpet - Day 1

[ew1usnr]

This is a project that I started today (Saturday). The black carpet in my 1963 Hardtop Falcon was a sun-faded purple color in places. It is a replacement carpet that had been installed at some point in the past and was not the original carpet. Notice that the toe-board section beneath the back seat is a different color than the carpet on the floor. That section is probably a remaining piece of the original carpet. The replacement carpet did not include that piece.

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I ordered a new black 80/20 loop molded carpet with extra rubber backing. It cost $208, postage included. It was sold by Aardvark Motors but was made by Auto Custom Carpets (ACC). The new carpet is like the old one in that it also does not replace the back seat toe-board section.

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The floor of the car looked in fairly good shape when I pulled out the old carpet. There had been some rust repair on the driver's side firewall and rear foot-well. I mostly left it alone, but did scrape up some loose under-coating and painted a few patches of surface rust with "Loctite Extend Rust Neutralizer" and will paint some Rustoleum primer over those patches tomorrow. See: http://www.loctiteproducts.com/p/s_trmt_extend/overview/Loctite-Extend-Rust-Neutralizer.htm

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Here is the worst of the rust on the floor. Someone repaired it in the past by applying Bondo both from the top and underneath. I will just leave it in place.

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[ew1usnr]

Replacing Carpet Day 1 Continued:

The toe-board carpet below the back seat was old and faded, but the new carpet would not replace that section. The blue stuff in the foreground is the Loctite rust neutralizer that had not dried yet. It turns black when dry. Here is a "before" shot of the toe-board:

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I wanted the toe-board area to match the new carpet, so I sprayed it with Duplicolor flat black Vinyl & Fabric Coating. The stuff seemed to work pretty well. Here is an "after" shot:

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See: See: https://www.duplicolor.com/products/vinylFabricCoating/ (https://www.duplicolor.com/products/vinylFabricCoating/)

[ew1usnr]

In the words of George W. Bush, "Mission Accomplished".

Here is the backside of the front piece of carpet showing the jute padding. I trimmed the new carpet using the old piece as a template.

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Here is the carpet installed. The two springs are the seat retractor springs. They provide an assisting pull when you want to scoot the seat forward. I used a wood burning tool to melt bolt holes through the carpet. It is like an electric soldering iron but has a bigger diameter tip. I pushed the hot tip up through the carpet through the bolt holes below the carpet. The wood burner went through like a hot knife through butter. See: http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result?q=wood+burner (http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result?q=wood+burner)

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Here is the car with the seat, seat belts, and floor mats installed. Bench seats and Ford-O-Matic Drive! Nothing could be finer. I'll take the car on a victory drive tomorrow.

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[redfalken]

Nice looking interior! I always think you get a lot of bang for your buck with new carpet.

[Luva65wagon]

Very nice! Makes the driving experience like driving a new car!

Also, though I think it was Kenny or Jeff that originally suggested it, it works really well... use a heated thin-wall tubing as a perfect hole-in-the-carpet cutter. Just grab a propane torch and heat it up the very end of a 12" piece of tubing until it is red-hot and then push the tube into the carpet where the hole needs to be. I've used large electrical conduit and small fuel line tubing. Nothing worse than grabbing a carpet thread with a drill.

[redfalken]

And I usually crawl under the car first to poke a scribe up through the carpet right in the center of the hole. Leave it there and when you go to push the red hot pipe into the carpet from top side, just center the scribe that's poking through in the pipe, push and twist a few times. And hold your breath because melting carpet stinks.

[Luva65wagon]

And hold your breath because melting carpet stinks.

That's the smell of progress...