ltoolio

I'm considering adding a replacement of my interior carpet to my ever-growing Winter Project List.

I've done some research on buying bulk Sliverknit (~$70/yard) and thought with some time (I'll have plenty), patience (wanes at time), my wife's help with trim & cutting and a disassembled interior that I might be able to start replacing out some of the existing pieces.

I've already cleaned out the existing padding and have covered the metal surfaces with Dynamat, but I'm not quite certain as to the appropriate rubber/jute padding to apply. Or even if I need to apply it with the Dynamat down.

Anyone have prior experience with this?

Thanks!

harveyf

I'm in the middle of a carpet replacement on my 86 so here are some pointers. I bought a carpet kit from Rob Budd. The only padding I found on my car was the rubber mats under the big pieces in the floorboards. Rob sold me replacement pieces at a reasonable price. You could probably do just as well with some of the mat that is sold to stand on in front of work benches, etc. Also, the large piece of the carpet in the rear came OEM with a mat attached/sewn to it. Rob's replacement piece has a similar backing. The rest of the carpet gets glued directly to the sheetmetal. If you've put in Dynamat you'll just have to be careful that it's smooth and doesn't have any discontinuities that telegraph through the carpet. You will also need to be careful that the extra thickness of the Dynamat doesn't screw up the fit of the center console pieces. Oh, for the piece of carpet that wraps around the 2 ECU brains, I took the heavy padding off the old carpet and glued it to the new.

I think one area you may struggle with from a standpoint of getting an OEM look are the rubber pieces in the gas pedal and dead pedal areas. Not sure where Rob gets his but I would suspect they are not something you'd find easily.

Cutting the bulk carpet to match with a pair of heavy scissors shouldn't be a problem. You will of course need some vinyl to use as sewn edging. I would think sewing this edging might require a fairly heavy duty sewing machine. There are also a few pieces, like those that fit over the covers that hold the left and right trunk release buttons, that require the carpet be sewn to produce a 90 deg corner. Easy job for the right sewing machine. Maybe a disaster for the wrong machine.

Like most things, not an impossible job with the right tools and patience.

bureau13

My personal opinion is that there is no way it would be worth it to sew/cut your own. Is it really THAT much cheaper than Rob Budd's kits? Then again, I've no experience with that sort of thing, so if you do, and you enjoy it, that's reason enough.

yardpro

i agree..
i am a huge diy guy and enjoy doing things myself even if the cost is the same.. but carpet.... NOPE...

ltoolio

Thanks, guys. As I mentioned, I'm just in the consideration phase right now, so nothing firm here.

I've already got Mr. Budd's fine pads, so if that's the backing that's recommended I'm good there.

Regarding cost - that's a big driver for me here. I will be having Bob do much of my dash and interior rehab in leather, and there's a fairly hefty price tag associated to that.

A 3'x5' piece of black sliverknit runs around $70 and a 3'x10' piece will run double. Bob's sliverknit kit costs $800.

I know I won't be able to do the whole interior with only 2 yards worth, but might be enough to start knocking pieces here and there with the wife's help.

The winter will be cold, I suspect I will burn out of doing work in the garage since it's not currently heated and it's not a whole lot of fun to be working with cold metal on a cold floor on a cold night. So....the carpet project could be something to span over a 3-4 month period

hacker-pschorr

Don't take this the wrong way....but I've seen more than a few DIY carpet jobs.

If Rob is already doing the leather, it would be a disservice to his work for a sub-par carpet job to be up against his work.

The upside is, if the project turns out to be less than what you expected, easy to tear out and start over without much capital outlay. Which I'm guessing is the driving force behind your decision.

Have you hit up Mark Anderson for a used carpet set?

ltoolio

No offense taken....this is the type of feedback I want when I ask potentially-dumb questions like this.

Yep. And his work is what sparked my initial interest. I'm going to have this beautiful leather work inside the car contrasting against 30+ year old sagging, smelly carpet. Which segues to:

Yep. $70-$150 would fall under the wife's radar a bit, and if it turned out really, really bad I could just put the old stuff back in. I'm guessing I could probably find a use for the left over material somewhere in the car, so it wouldn't be a complete waste.

Negative. If I find that I don't want to go down this route or that the work at the end of it is crap, I'll just save up for Budd's stuff.

hacker-pschorr

Did you follow Rob's restoration of the Blue GT?

He did miracles with that carpet. I'd go that route first after seeing his results.

ltoolio

Damn....you ain't kidding.

Looks like I've got some covert washing machine usage ahead of me. Thanks for the pointer!