Rugs are done!

[Gumball]

I've been on vacation this week and spent every day in the shop plowing through my to-do list of final touches. Although I've made great progress, I still seem to have quite a few things on my list. One of the big tasks was to install the carpets, including in the trunk. I previously fitted everything, trimming where necessary and marking for edging. A few of my mods necessitated changes to the carpet layout, including the dash tubes, seat-back braces, and access panels / storage area over the gas tank. As with other aspects of my build, I'm going for an old-school look with the carpets, so I added quite a bit of edging. That was one of the few things I farmed out, as I wanted the edging sewn onto the carpet.

Custom touches include:

Layered and scalloped trans tunnel pieces to route around the under-dash tubes

For the trunk, the floor piece over the gas tank is removable - I riveted some regular male snaps to the aluminum panel and then added the female snaps to the back of the carpet using "spike rings" and snaps that I bought from angloparts.com (based in Belgium). Those snaps are most likely available via Moss Motors, but there were a few other things I needed from angloparts, so I just added them to the order.

Floor mats - I made my own using some carpet remnants that were left over from the trunk carpeting. These are held in place using lift-the-dots, including posts that are made specifically for this purpose... they have two spikes on the back and come with rings for the backside of the carpet that hold them in place.

Wear pads - the upholstery guy gave me a few large, ribbed, rectangular rubber wear pads that I cut to fit... the ribs mimic the pattern of the seats and I have a set of the ********** door panels that have the same pattern. The upholsterer then sewed the pads to the driver's floor, driver's inner wall (by the accelerator), and both floor mats.

I still have to do the under-door carpets (once the body is on) and two small pieces of carpet for the 2x2 chassis tubes at the door hinges. The remaining chassis tubes (except for the round tubes in the driver's footwell) are covered with left over leather from the seats and dash.

A few photos...

[Gumball]

Here are a couple pics of the trunk carpet -

This is the three parts of the snap set-up for the removable piece:

[carlewms]

Chris,

Magnificent as usual...it am going to follow your lead on carpet. I really like the edging.

Carl

[Jester]

Very nice! Looks better than OEM

I see a few awards in your future

[WIS89]

Chris-

The edging on the carpet, and those rub pads look awesome! Very, very nice work!

I may hijack a few ideas.

Regards,

Steve

[chopthebass]

don't suppose you can nip up to Calgary when I'm ready to carpet!

Very nice job.

[CraigS]

That is a great job. It is exactly the way I remember all the 60-70 MGs, Jags, Healeys etc looking and is the look I went for too. The nice thing about this is that their skills back then were just like we have today. No molded stuff. It all had to be made out of flat carpet that could only be curved in one way-no compound curves.

[j.miller]

looking great!! very tight job.