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Installing new Carpet
Author: Roger Holeman's 67 GT500 (more...)
My son & I just did the fold-down carpets on our '67 GT500 project.
It's not at all bad.
First, for each piece, we took copious numbers of digital photos from
every angle, making sure to get each area that could possibly be
"wondered about" later. Then we took off all the metal pieces and
worked them over, first removing rust with naval jelly, then polishing
them until we were satisfied.
At this point, we were pretty sorry that we hadn't sent most of the
chrome off for replating with the rest of the items that had already
been chromed and returned, and we decided that maybe in a year or two
we'd go ahead and do it. Think about it. AC Plating can turn chrome
around, done pretty nicely and not too expensively, in about 3 weeks.
Then rip off the old carpet and discard it. We used lacquer thinner to
get the old glue off.
Next, we sized the overly-large replacements down to the point where
they were only about 1" too big. We used plain old contact cement,
brushed on with a 2" foam throwaway brush on both surfaces, letting them
set for about 10 minutes, and then the 2 of us carefully laid the carpet
piece in position...there's no such thing as "repositioning" with
contact cement, but it's not hard to get it right. Then trim the edges
& reassemble.
I was worried about getting the lines of tufting straight, but it didn't
seem to make much difference as long as it's close. We're real pleased
with the way these turned out. It helps to have pictures of the
assemblies, both your own digitals as well as some of the diagram sets
that are available on the market.
Sidebar: Our rear seats were mildewed from sitting, but were otherwise
perfect. We cleaned them up LIKE NEW using Sprayway #990 Vinyl Leather
Cleaner. This stuff was simply amazing. I got it from our local
upholsterer who recovered the front seats, but maybe it's available
online somewhere...it's Sprayway, Inc. in Addison, IL. After this stuff
cleaned up the mildew 100%, we treated the seats using Leatherique
Rejuvinator Oil and Prestine Clean. In combination, this approach would
be really hard to beat. The Leatherique products also work well on our
leather upholstered cars naturally.
http://www.leatherique.com/
Let us know how the project turns out.
Roger
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