Carpet Project B&B

[Wbulk]

THE BEGINNING
I am appreciative of the FF guys that write the details of their builds, the good the bad, and the ugly. I believe that helps everyone else and improves the product overall. I know there are some guys out there that have to determine what to do about carpet to.
I couldn't find a carpet or interior topic so I am putting this under the B&B area because that's what the car is. When I started this car I committed to doing everything myself, including: needed fabricating, building the engine, rebuilding the diff., body and paint, alignment, eveything. So, now it's time for carpet. I must admit I am a little anxious about this. OK, after thinking about this I have to admit "doing everything myself" includes the help of my wife when she agrees to it. Understand, she believes cars are just people movers with four black tires that get you and the grandkids from point A to B. But she has sewing skills I need. She did a very professional job 15 years ago upholstering our boat.

I, like others am not using the carpet that came with the car so I started doing some reading on the FFR forum, getting some ideas, and have been developing a plan. I have requested carpet samples from three companies, but it looks like a lot of companies buy theirs from ACC Carpets. I got ACCs samples yesterday and it looks like I am going with cut pile dark gray # 807 since it goes perfect with the gray upholstery on the seats, door panels and dash.

This weekend I will move the car over to the main garage for more room and take a picture for a beginning point. I have asked my wife to help, and she had this cringed look on her face and then said she will think about it. She remembers helping with some really tuff things in the past.

I am going to use insulation material first and then some jute padding in some of the areas. This is not a show car but I will do the best I resonably can. I will use cording in some of the areas. I will also post material costs as I go.

If you have experience lets hear from you. Oh ya, how many yards are needed of 72" wide material for a B&B with trunk and the side panels under the doors going forward?

Picture Added:

[Wbulk]

One of the things that is unresolved is my kit came with a top console fiberglass piece that was covered with vinyl that matches the dash and seats. This piece is supposed to go over the tunnel. I actually really like this but I can't see how it would work if you try and insulate the tunnel and then run the carpet up the sides. The piece is really tight now with nothing on the tunnel sides, and you really have to force it over the tunnel. I would have been great had it been made about 1/4" bigger around the top sides to allow for insulation and carpet. If anyone has a picture of where this has worked out please post it. Lacking any other ideas I think we are going to have to just cover the tunnel with carpet. Kind of a shame since it looks pretty good.

[lnfletcher]

Good luck, this was not one of my favorite parts.
I plan some time in the future to replace mine with wool loop carpet.

Looking forward to seeing your method!

[Wbulk]

I should have the rest of my materials by Tuesday so I can get this going. I have three different types of insulation. I have the jute that came with the car, but really wasn't close to being enough. I have two 36"x60" rolls of Cool It by Thermo Tec. I bought these a couple of years ago. This is a foil faced self sticking material. I decided against using this after talking with the tech people that were not sure if it would be a good appliction for the foot box areas that were verticle. The heat may not allow it to stick as good as it should. It would work really good for the flat surfaces like the floorboards of a metal car. I guess I will sell this stuff. After reading as much as I could from the FFR guys I ordered two 4'X10' rolls of EZ Cool. This seems to be pretty good stuff at a resonable prices. I am going to use 3M high strength 90 for adhesive to the firewall and Weldwood Gel cement in a can for the rest of the interior. Another good glue is Sprayway #092 Fast Tack Hi-Temp heavy duty trim adhesive. It's really a good deal for about less than half the price of the 3M 90, but I can't get it locally.

I ordered carpet samples from three companies and ended up ordering 7 1/2 72" wide yards from ACC Custom Carpets. I found that they supply a lot of the other companies with carpet. Their colors matched one of the other companies exactly, and this other company just added an additional number to the part number. I decided not to carpet the two side walls and instead ordered vinyl to match the seats and dash. I also ordered 15 yrds of binding from ACC to edge the carpet. My wife did a test and her sewing maching will sew through the binding and carpet without any problem.

Cost so Far:
ACC cut pile carpet 7 1/2 yrds at 29.74 a yrd. was $223.03 plus 96.50 shipping to Utah, less 20% internet special for May ended up at $274.92.

The Ez Cool Insulation was $80.00 delieved from Texas.

The extra yard of vinyl was $31.87 shipped from Colorado

The binding was $1.25 a yard.for a total of $20.00

Total so far $406.00

I have heard of guys getting it done for $500-$700. It seems like a lot of work to do a good job. We will see. I may just fail at this.

Larry, I caught your idea of notching the side panel for the cowl/door support. That's a good idea. I'm going to use it. Thanks!

[Dwight]

[QUOTE This is a foil faced self sticking material. I decided against using this after talking with the tech people that were not sure if it would be a good appliction for the foot box areas that were verticle. The heat may not allow it to stick as good as it should. ][/quote]

I have used Dynomat and Summit brand peal and stick sound / heat / insulation on more than a couple of cars. It will stick on a firewall and not turn loose after years on the road. Good product. I had to remove a lot of it on my GT 40. It's sticks! Not easy to remove and you don't save much when you do remove it.

Go easy on the glue. You can glue just spots and the edges. Last week I pulled the carpet out of a 23 year old kit car trunk to cut a trap door for a sending unit. They use a little glue around the edges and it was easy to remove the pad and carpet without destroying them. Remember New car don't glue their carpet in. Just screws and push pin in a few places.
Glue the edges and it will stay in place.
I use heavy paper to make templates before I cut the carpet. It easy to cut excess or add tape where you cut to short.
You can lay the templates on the carpet in a way to minimize waste. Use soap stone or something that will wipe off. Don't use a Sharpie or you will have to cut or hide your Sharpie lines. They don't wipe off. Lesson learned on the first carpet job.

Enjoy, it can be fun.

Dwight

[lnfletcher]

Ok Wayne, hows the carpet coming?!
Are you like me and just can't find yourself working on it when the weather is for driving it!

[Wbulk]

I got delayed with real life issues that tend to get in the way working on the car. I just started back on it and will update next week.

[lnfletcher]

Man I hate when that happens!
Watching for it.

[Wbulk]

Well I finally got back on this after being delayed for various reasons, one of which was deciding on insulation and padding. I have done a fair bit of reading and came to the conclusion that carpet directly over hard edges wears carpet out quicker. I also read that with a lot of cars with foot boxes get really hot, so I decided that I wanted to take care of the insulation and padding issue in one step.

I ended up buying three types of insulation, selling one and using the other two. The two I used were Ez-Cool and a product called Bonded Logic. Both of these the FFR guys have used and are resonably priced.

Ez-Cool is has foil on both sides with air cells in the middle. It is about 3/16" thick and you glue it on. I first started by making patterns and installing it on the back panel behind the seats. I used DAP gel in a can that has a heat resistant formula. For some reason the idea hit me to test this product before I went any further. So, in an un-scientific test, (without credibilty), I took a heat gun and a cooking thermometer and held it on the surface of the Ez-Cool. At about 150 degrees the foil surface began to bubble and and got bigger until I shut off the heat. When it cooled the center bubble pack had collapsed and the product was pretty thin in that area. I put the thermometer on the back side in the same area and turned on the gun. As far as keeping heat out the thermoneter did not even move to the minimum reading. I decided I would only use this in a few other areas that were vertical and where clearance was an issue. I also felt that I didn't want to use it in any area that was horizontal and might have weight on it that might collapse the center bubble section.
For most of the interior I decided to use a product called Bonded Logic. A few FFR guys had used it and really liked it. It is a 7/16"- 1/2" pad and foil faced insulation all in one. I got it from JC Whitney on a father's day sale for about $52 delivered. The roll is giant 4'X24'. The padding is ground up denim and is class A fire treated. When I got it I did my heat gun test with the thremometer and got no reading and no problems with the foil. I put the heat on the denim side and after about 30 seconds it turned brown but did not burn. I called the company and they said there testing showed it worked better with the foil side up. In the end I have about $85 in insulation material for enough to do two cars.

[Bryan Anderson]

HI Wayne, I changed the mold on the center console piece so that it would be a little bigger on the sides I would be happy to make one and send it out to see if this will help you, Im not sure if it will give you enough after you add on that thick insulation material, but let me Know if you want to give it a try.

Bryan

[Wbulk]

I got started on this by making pretty accurate patterns using poster board. When actually cutting the pad you have to pay attention to material thickness where some areas meet and allow for deductions. I found it was easier to cut large pieces of paper without trying to get close to the edges, and then fill in and tape pieces to the edges to get accurate patterns. I am also saving the patterns for the carpet. It took about four hours to make the patterns.

I must say this process made me envious of kits that come with a quality complete carpet sets, but I'm guessing you would have to have specific thickness of insulation to make the carpet fit correctly.





I will add pad to the bottom metal floor.

[Wbulk]

Thanks Bryan. I may take you up on that. I really like that design.

[lnfletcher]

Just an early suggestion.
Before you get too far on the side panels, you may want to glue some carpet or other material behind the hinge to cover the fiberglass sidewall. This is visable when the door is open and it is really hard to get to after all is put together!

[Wbulk]

I will take a look at that Larry. I am redoing those side panels for a better fit and putting on vinyl that matches the dash and seats. I also have hinge covers. I will also be notching the side panels for the cowl supports like you did. That was a good one. It makes the panels fit a lot better. We will call that the Larry side panel mod.

Thanks.

[Wbulk]

I got back working on the carpet this week and I must say it was not real fun working in 100 degree heat. One of the things I decided in the beginning was that I was going to do binding on the carpet. Everything that I have done is based on bits and pieces that I have read, "no expert here". With binding, the carpet that is under the binding piece should extend an inch or so under, so your inside corners are covered. See the picture at the back wall where it meets the floor. This process of doing the binding would seem to me to be more labor intensive as you can't glue and then cut. You have to place and mark and cut over and over until it's perfect and the sew in the binding, and then glue in place accurately. The patterns I made really helped here.

BINDING ISSUES
My wife and I ran into a few problems with the binding that I need to mention in case you try this. We tested sewing the carpet with my wife's sewing machine and it seemed to work without any problems. When we actaully started sewing the binding on we ran into some problems with missing stiches. This resulted in us doing a lot of testing with two binding methods and two types of binding. See picture below. As it turns out the binding I purchased with the carpet had on folded over and glued edge on one side for the finished edge. You can also cut 2" wide strips of binding from vinyl that is the same material as your seats and dash. However if it is not sewn close to the edge it can curl over exposing the cut edge over time. In the end we found that our machine was the problem with the standard single binding stich, as it had to sew through three layers of binding plus the carpet. When we used a piece of scrap from the dash it worked fine. The folded and glued edge was just to hard and thick. You also must have a machine with a walking foot, which we had.

We also tested two types of binding stiches with scraps from the dash. In the picture the one on the left is a hidden stich and the right is a standard stich. The hidden stich requires twice as much sewing. It would most likely take another yard of material. We are still deciding on having someone sew on the binding we have with an industrial machine or buy some more dash vinyl and do the hidden stich.

A word of caution when cutting cut pile carpet. Because it was so hot in the garage my wife brought out a fan. My wife then helped me for a few hours and then later she started getting sick. Over the next day we realized when the fan was on the cut fibers would get in the air and she quickly bagan to have breathing problems. I had coughed a few times at night but didn't think much of it until we realized what was happening. Those small cut fibers can just float in the air.

THREAD
For the binding we are using Coats & Clark UV polyester outdoor living thread. It is a size 67 and just about impossible to break. Size 69 is just about the largest you can use in a home sewing machine.

SEAMS
Because of the way I decided to run the carpet on the tunnel and the odd angles of the B&B I ended up having to make one seam on the left tunnel front side. I tried using a heat gun to shape it, but it just didn't work. In the end I ended up cutting a 3 1/2" pie shape out. We did some testing and found that cutting the mating sides with a razor and straight edge worked pretty good. I then held the sides together really tight while my wife put on this miracle tape called EZ Seam from Lowe's. It is really, really, strong and sticky. A lot of B&Bs tunnels are carpeted with a top and two sides using cording on the corners, but I just didn't like the look.

[Darth Menace]

I love the look of your carpet. the cobra I am looking to buy needs some new carpet and I am contemplating putting some sort of vinyl in place of where the carpet goes. I will follow this thread closely if i do end up buying the car

[Wbulk]

In the end we decided to buy an additional yard of vinyl that matched the dash and seats and cut our own binding. In the decision process we also decided to buy a used industrial sewing maching. My wife always wanted one. I did call around and found a place that would sew standard stich binding for a dollar a foot. So that would have cost about $40.00. Buying an industrial sewing machine is as complicated as buying a cobra with the learning curve factor. We decided you need a machine with: a walking foot that lifts 9/16" min, has a reverse, can take at least 92 thread, and has a 1/2 hp servo motor.

We decided to do what I call the blind or hidden stich binding. We learned it from this Youtube video.
A simple way to bind edges on classic car carpets - YouTube

The patterns I did for the insulation/pad were really valuable for the carpet. Once they are used for the pad you can use them again to cut down for the capet, less the pad thickness. The carpet pattern will vary depending on the thickness of the pad used. I ended up with eleven pieces or sections for the inside of the car. It took just about 4 1/2 yards of carpet, not including the trunk, and that's with two pieces I cut wrong and had to redo them. This is not including side panels that I will do out of vinyl. I still have a 2 1/2 yrd roll for the trunk left. In the end I think the whole car could be done with 6 yrds if you don't make any mistakes,- but that would be close.

Just after cutting the second piece of carpet my wife came out and said, "did you match up the nap." What's the nap I asked! She showed me you run your hand accross the material so you can see the direction of the weave. When the naps do not line up the carpet can look odd and appear to be different colors. I lucked out on the piece I cut and then marked the roll "FRONT" with an arrow on the back side. I also marked and cut all the carpet on the back side. It was a lot easier to make accurate traces.

I am still deciding if I should purchase a heal pad or make one out of vinyl so I havn't put the floor piece in yet. In the end I am glad we did it but it would be better as a winter project instead of doing it in the heat. If I was to do it again I now know exactly what and how much to buy. The cost would be just under $350 plus carpet shipping costs.

[lnfletcher]

That looks awesome!
Good work.

[Wbulk]

Here are the pictures of the completed project.

On the side panels I used the ones supplied as a starting point to make a better fitting pattern for new ones. I used 1/8" Landau closed cell foam with vinyl that matched the seats. I made aluminum clips and glued them with JB Weld to the sides of the body to secure the side panels with trim screws. It had three along the bottom and one up top at the center/side of the footbox.

Larry's modification worked really well by notching the panels for the door and cowl frame bracing so the panels fit right. I screwed a thin piece of aluminum over the frame tubes before gluing on carpet so it was secure and the carpet set flush.

I am glad this is done.



I cut the throttle arm welds and moved it over to center it and added a throttle stop.


This is the Y belt bracket and trim I made to move the belt away from the cowl so it does not rub the paint.

[lnfletcher]

Looks awesome!
I like your passenger seat belt anchor!