Carpets Part 1

Hi Folks,

The dashboard and door cards are off with the seats being trimmed at the moment. The factory kindly let me have the carpet early so I can get on with that part. The factory also supply the required glue. The order for fitting can be found in the build manual, the first part is also the largest and probably most awkward being the piece that covers the bulkhead behind the seats. The process I've followed is to first create a template using some old wallpaper, transfer the template onto the carpet (remember to make sure the template is the right way up), cut the carpet and test fit. Once ready to glue the carpet, rub down the back of the carpet with a light sandpaper to roughen up the surface and clean off with acetone as well as the area of the car to be carpeted. Apply the glue (make sure the area is well ventilated - wow that stuff is strong), let the glue go off and then fix in place. It's a strong contact adhesive and difficult to manage in large areas, a second pair of hands helps. 

Making Paper Template

Transfer Template onto Carpet

Fitting Carpet (masking Tape provides location marks)

 The next pieces are around the edge of the tub in the seating area, the top of this section has some of the bolts that secure the body to the chassis and these will show as a bump under the carpet, mostly they are out of site but I preferred to have a cleaner line, so I made up some spacers from 6mm MDF that fit around the edge so that the carpet can sit flat. The MDF is soaked in varnish to make it waterproof and easier for the glue to stick to.