Tom M'Guinn

I'm replacing the carpet in my car to change it from beige to black, and from gross to nice. I knew my 30-year-old beige carpet had seen better days, but in the bright sunlight it's downright gross. I had no idea. I actually shampooed it several times. I suspect much of the driver's side issue was the hydraulic leak many years ago, and perhaps an old water leak, along with 30 years of use. Floor mats can hide a world of dirt it seems. The replacement carpet is also from a 951 but is virtually new by comparison. If anyone local wants this carpet (and the beige rear seat) just let me know. With a ton of effort it could be, um, less revolting...

raleighBahn

Tom, how many bodies decomposed on that carpet?

V2Rocket

Yeah, it's hard to believe the kind of **** that gets stuck in weird hard to clean spots on the carpet.

Last year I pulled my seats out to do some carpet cleaning...within about an hour I had ripped out all the carpet from the car, and ordered new material

gregeast

You're going to love the black carpet and the contrast (deviating I believe is the factory term) with your tan interior, can't wait to see it!

User 52121

I did the same thing a few months after I bought mine! Had tan carpeting in it... scrubbed, shampoo'd, and steam cleaned the crap out of it (actually did it a few times) and just couldn't get all the dirt up.

Fellow PCA'er was parting out a 951 that had an all-black interior. Scooped up the carpets for cheap and tossed them in. HUGE improvement! (I steam cleaned those too...)

gregeast

When you're all done wrestling the new carpet in place it'll look something like this:

EJZero1

In the middle of a carpet swap here, too! Putting a set of Can Can Red carpets in a black 951. Just finished re-dying the carpets and a pair of Sparco seats to match.

Any suggestions on pulling the rear side carpets? Is it necessary to remove or otherwise manipulate the side mouldings?

(Hope this doesn't count as a thread hijack!)

Tom M'Guinn

Not a hijack at all. For the rear side carpets, I just removed the screws holding the rear side-walls in place and that gave me plenty of wiggle room to get the old ones our and slide the new ones in. I did the same with the center console -- just removed all the screws and left if there so I didn't need to take out all the switches and the radio, etc. The carpet was glued in pretty good in places, but I was able to work my hand behind it to separate it from the padding (which I left in place).

One unplanned challenge was getting the carpet off the gas pedal. Turns out, removing the gas pedal is pretty easy. You can remove the push rod by pulling off the circlip by hand (no tools). It has a little tang that allows you to pull it off. Then remove the two M6 nuts behind the base of the pedal to remove the pedal from the car. That makes replacing the carpet much easier -- not sure you can do it otherwise.

I also did a rear seat delete while I was at it, so if you are retaining your rear seat, you may have to work replace the carpets that tuck under the seat bottom.

I have a question for you (or anyone). When I removed the front seat belt strap bolts, I noticed the big washer was on the outside of the carpet trapping the carpet between the washer and the body. Is that how yours is? I strongly suspect that was the handy work of the prior owner's stereo installer (along with the sheet metal screws he put in the floorpan to ground things!), but wanted to check. I put the washer under the carpet up against the metal because I just couldn't see how you could get solid torque on compressed carpet! Here's a picture of the part I'm taking about...

Tom M'Guinn

I could only hope it looked half that good!

EJZero1

My front belt hardware was like yours, with the carpet sandwiched between the body and the large washer.

Thanks for the info on the side walls. That's the only carpet left in the car right now, so I'm anxious to give your technique a try when I can get back to it. I did use the same approach to the front carpets versus the center console and it worked well.

The gas pedal did slow me down a bit, (ironic, yes?) but it was not a hard work around once I figured out the hardware setup I was dealing with.

Thanks, Tom!

V2Rocket

The small side windows take about 15 seconds each to pop out, which makes removing those panels much easier...

Tom M'Guinn

Thanks for the washer info. I'm guessing the hole in the carpet allows the washer to make metal contact anyway, and then the anchor bracket can move freely on the post part of the bolt. Will put it back the way I found it...

I didn't remove the panels to change the carpet, and it wasn't much of an issue. There's a speaker up in there I'd remove or hook up if I took the panel off though... So does that glass just push out -- any trick to removal or reinstallation?

V2Rocket

Two ways to do it...
1) Have someone stand outside the car to catch the window...sit yourself in the rear seat, place foot firmly on glass pane and push, it'll come out
2) By yourself, use your fingers to peel the inner lip of the seal away from the panel, you basically lift it so it pivots towards the glass and unhooks from the body. Work your fingers around the edge, once you get about 2/3 of the way around the whole thing will come out. By this method it might take 15-30 seconds, depending how stuck the seal is (and if the factory used any glue with the seal).

Tom M'Guinn

Here's where it stands today. The fresh black carpet just transforms the feel of the car. Need new floor matts now. I must say I think that new Classic Radio would look perfect in there. Still have the leather dash/console/doors to install...

EJZero1

Very nice, Tom!

Gonna try to spend some time on mine tomorrow, and will post pics if I make any significant progress.