Carpet
Carpeting is another item that I purchased a long time ago. It's been in and out of the car over the years, but never properly installed. One item I was missing was the correct snaps. These are the hidden type where there's no visible button on top of the carpet. After futilely searching, I found that Mike Dunn had them.
The ring gets imbedded in the carpet with the prongs pushing through the backing. They are then put through the base and clinched tight. That base has the spring snap that fits over the lower piece which is screwed to the floorboard.
Here you can see the top side with the ring just visible and the bottom side all clinched down. Over time, the ring gets less and less visible as the carpet fluffs itself back up and around the ring.
The original jute sound deadening material had long ago been removed. I decided to go with a foam padding instead. Here is a piece cut and ready for the carpet.
But before I could go much further, I had to install all of the snaps on the floorboards. The body parts book just gives a general position where the snaps are supposed to be located. Several weeks ago, I took my car over to Lowell Brown's and spent a couple of hours measuring where his snaps were installed. Then I tried locating the original holes on my car. It's not as easy as it sounds because the jute backing had been glued to the floorboard. So I spent a lot of time scratching in the general area using a dental pick. I was able to find most of the holes either by scratching or locating them underneath the car and sticking the pick up from the bottom.
This hole was pretty easy to spot, particularly after I circled it. In one case, the fiberglass floorboard had been repaired and the hole was covered over. However, shining a strong light up from under the car let me see the original hole through the repair, so I was able to re-drill it in the correct spot. I also had to relocate a couple of them to better fit the carpet.
My car has long driver's seat rails. I've been trying to decide if this was done at the factory or later. The job was poorly done plus one of the original carpet snaps had been left under one of the extensions. So that has led me to believe that this was a aftermarket fix. As you can see, the extension is just crudely welded on with a bolt and spacer to hold it at the correct height off the floor at the rear.
Since the seats had to be removed to facilitate working on the carpet, I took this opportunity to put on the seat return spring. I can't remember if they were ever on the seats while I've had the car or not. In any case, a stop at the local hardware store came up with a pair that matched what Lowell has on his car. Actually, they are identical, so his have been replaced at some point too. The other point of interest is the '92' chalked on the rubber straps. This is my Pininfarina body number of 592 shortened.
At the same time, I replaced the knobs on the seat back levers. As you can see, the old one on the right is a little chewed up. The new one is a reproduction from Mike Dunn.
