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April 26, 2018

Carpet & Other Interior

Of all the beat down, used up, worn out parts of this car,  probably the carpets were the worst.  All of that UV radiation, the occasional soaking, dirt and grime, and just age had reduced the fitted pieces to faded, threadbare rags in some places.  I laid out the remains of the carpet set on my work table to get an idea of how they once fit together.  Some pieces were missing altogether.




Carpet sets for the TR6 are readily available from multiple vendors in many colors and qualities, and buying one of them would be a totally reasonable thing to do.  On the other hand, it would be a nice challenge to try to try to make a set from scratch.  That approach would better fit the spirit of the overall restoration project, and besides, I had this new sewing machine that I told my wife I'd be using for all kinds of things.  So, before came to my senses and reconsidered, I ordered a few yards of automotive carpet and some jute pad.

While waiting for the materials to arrive, I did some prep work.  I added some CLD (Constrained Layer Dampening) pads to some of the larger panels to reduce vibration noise.  CLD is the modern version of the bituminous pads the factory afixed to the body at key places.  When a flat sheet metal panel has large unsupported areas, it can be set to vibrating by natural motions of the car.  CLD pads work in two ways:  they increase the mass of the panel, which lowers the resonant frequency, and they damp motion by absorbing mechanical energy from the vibration.  CLD is most effective near the center of unsupported areas.  There isn't much to be gained by applying it near the edges of a panel where the panel is constrained.




When the supplies arrived, I decided to start at the rear.  I used the old carpet piece as a pattern for the jute padding to go on the shelf behind the seats.  Then glued the jute down.




This is the little piece that goes on the diff hump.




And the shelf carpet piece, also made from the old carpet pattern.  I thought a long time on how to do the carpet edge binding.  The carpet I used doesn't have a woven backing, so it technically doesn't need to be bound, but binding gives a much more finished look.  What I ended up doing is using strips of the same vinyl I used for the interior vertical panels.  The vinyl strips were sewn to the carpet face to face, and then the vinyl was wrapped around the edge, and glued on the backside of the carpet.  This hides the stitching, which is a good thing, since I'm still a little green on this sewing thing.




Then glued the carpet pieces down, and added the rear vinyl panel to see how it would look.




Next up was the carpet strips along the inner sills.  I only had a couple of shredded remnants to work from, but some catalog pictures helped.  The rear portion of each strip that runs along the door opening gusset is bound normally, but the center sections have a vinyl strip sewn on that is glued to the flange joint at the top of the inner sills.  That strip gets casptured by the door seal.




Next, it was back to the front of the cabin to start carpeting the tunnel.  This piece goes on the fire wall around where the gearbox cover fastens.




The compound curve of the front gearbox cover piece is done with two parts sewn together.  I unstitched the original to use the two pieces as patterns.




This piece is held in place by four snaps.  The male parts of the snaps are riveted to the fiberglass tunnel, and clearance holes were cut in the jute.




The female snap parts crimp together through the carpet.  The backside of the snap almost disappears in the nap of the carpet.




This tunnel piece also had a rubber protector sewn in next to the throttle pedal.  It was apparently working since it was pretty worn.  These can be bought today, but  I got them a lot sooner by just 3D printing a couple.  I used ABS, but in this thin section, they are similar in flexibility to the originals.




I wasn't sure if my sewing machine could handle the ABS, so I just pre-drilled and stitched the protectors on by hand.




Moving rearward along the tunnel, this is the piece that goes around the shifter.  Since my shifter surround can be detached from the H frame, the H frame didn't need to come out.




Next step back is the part of the tunnel that holds the hand brake lever.  Since I'm not using that cardboard cover that goes over the hand brake cables, but installing a center console instead, this part of the tunnel can just be covered in two pieces, one on each side.




Then the new center console goes on top, using its trick fastening gizmo.




Now back up front to do the outboard side panels of the foot wells.  These panels had a backer of some cardboardy substance covered with carpet.  The backer panels were pretty distorted.




I made new panels out of Kydex.  I couldn't see what some of the cutouts were for in the original panels, so the new ones are a much simpler shape, and slightly larger.  I decided at the last minute to move the foot well cabin lights to these panels.  The cutouts are for the same lights used for the boot.




These panels will screw directly to the tub with self-drilling screws.  However, their exact fore-aft position depends on the door seals, which the panels need to snug up to.  So off to a little side-trip.

My door seals were in deplorable shape.  The new ones are of a little different design, but reportedly work OK.




Flipping a coin, I started at the rear of the door opening.  I think it might have been better the other way.  The gusset area was the trickiest.




This is why it might have been better to start at the front.  That, or leave off the windscreen cap until the door seal is in.




With some careful trimming, I was able to tuck the end of the seal into the pocket in the screen cap.




Now back to the carpet.  First a little rewiring to bring the cabin light circuit to the  A posts.




Then attach the side panels right next to the door seals.




Now it's just the floors left.  In a departure from the original carpet sets, I opted to make a seperate carpet piece for the toe board on each side.  I glued these in with jute backing, so they are somewhat more permanent than the flat floor pieces.  This makes the removable piece in front of the seats smaller, simpler, and easier to install.




CLD on the floors.  Then Jute.  The wires are for the seat heaters.




I only had the shredded remains of one of the rear floor carpets.  The other one was missing completely.  Since I couldn't really rely on them as templates, I made cardboard ones instead.




These pieces are where the seat tracks mount.  The tracks are held above the floor by spacers to account for the compressed thickness of the carpet and padding.  I looked in my marked bags of parts and found the track spacers, but only five of them.  I decided I could probably make new spacers nearly as quickly as finding them in catalogs and ordering them, so that's what I set out to do.  When measuring the original spacers, I thought they looked a little wimpy, so I decided to beef them up a little.  They are larger in diameter, but also a little thicker, since my carpet and jute seem to be a little bulkier than the original materials.  




At this point, I also installed the seat belt stalks.




Now for the front floor carpets.  My originals were both AWOL, so it was down to winging it with cardboard.




Another short detour was the little finishing caps at the top of the B post.  I couldn't find my originals, so I bought new ones.  They look fine, but they didn't fit very well.  Some trimming fixed that.




The original caps were held by a sheet metal screw in the inside.  I used a rivet nut and machine screw instead.




The outside gets a blind rivet, but I'll wait until final assembly to install that.




So, looking more comfy every day.




Even more so with the seats.




Making my own carpet set is a job I probably would not do again.  I probably saved some money, but not a lot, and it took a long time.  I'm not thrilled with the fit in a few places, and the binding in some of the tight curves could be better.  On the other hand, I guess I can now say "Been there, done that".  All I need is the T shirt.

Comments to Ed at elhollin1@yahoo.com

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