help needed removing carpet.
 

i am cleaning the hell out of my car. This will include removing the carpet in the front, throwing away old foam and replacing it with new foam. there was a strange odor in my car that i was not a fan of lol. so far i have taken apart the sides (near the doors) that hold the carpet. my question to you all is: do i have to remove the dash to take out the front portion of the carpet completely?

background info:
10th aniv rx7
that's all you need to know =)

Yeah, remove the dash! makes it mutch easier! Removing the dash isnt that hard if u follow the FSM. :)

The dash is like 14 or so bolts and 1 screw, its simple to do, just be very very careful, its prone to cracking and breaking in certain areas due to age. Go to the archives, theres a great writeup on taking the dash out.

As for your question, you dont HAVE to take it out. I managed to pull my carpet out from under the dash once. It took a lot of hard tugging but it finally came out. If yours wont just pull out, you can simply cut it really far towards the dash and then put your new carpet over it and cut in the same spot so it looks flush.

Take the dash out. Don't cut corners.

Do you have a gear puller to get the steering wheel off, or are you just going to yank it?

Take the radio out first.

Don't forget the speedometer cable. Hooking it back up is always the hardest part about putting the dash back in.

Aside: when I first joined the board and started reading posts, I always assumed a members post count corresponded to how much he knew. ie, a higher number of posts meant he knew a few things about cars. Lately I am coming to find that a lot of high post people asking the simplest questions. I guess while I was out working on my seven, these guys were posting "Cool" and "Kick ass" and adding nothing to the rotary community.

Just my observation.

B

When you remove 20 year old interior pieces they are likely to break or somehow get scratched in the process. Do you really want to do this just to CLEAN? You can probably get rid of this smell without removing the carpet completely.

I say don't do it. It's not like you are changing a heater core or something... this is not a necessary job.

This is THE funniest shit I have ever read, I never said it out loud but I love that you did, some people know alot of information about these cars but high post count doesnt mean jack.,

I'm gonna agree with arghx on this; why risk breaking brittle interior plastic stuff if you don't need to. If you remove the seats, door sill scuff plates, and a few assorted pieces of trim on the floor, you can lift up the carpeting enough to have access to the foam padding under the carpet. You can blast it with some Febreze or whatever product you prefer... Having lived in New Orleans for 3 years, I did this 3 or 4 times myself whenever the car would get flooded in the street during the all-too-frequent flash flooding where there was just enough water to make it inside over the doorsills. This is enough of a project in itself to keep you entertained.

I redid my vert a few years ago. The dash and other advice above is all good. There is a great right up in the FAQ/Archives on how to pull the dash.

When I did mine instead of new padding i used Some dynamat foam. It works just as good if you can't find new padding.

you can get new carpet form stockinteriors.com

The foam is called jute, and thats what smells. new carpet with new jute costs around 180 from that site.

when the interior is out, be sure to take some APC cut with water, and a ton of rags and brushes and clean the floorboards. Youll be amazed how much dirt there is.

Cut the carpet and don't remove the dash.... I have done this in 3 cars now and you can NEVER tell when you put the carpet back in... work smarter not harder....

Some might agree that's "smarter", some won't.
Personally, I'd be pissed if a PO took such a shortcut.

Besides, pulling the dash will give you access to a lot that can't be cleaned- and should be- with the dash in place.
Inspect and clean the heatercore (replace if necessary) and scrub out all the vent tubes...lots of dust, sometimes mold, can be found in there.
You can also repair any broken mounting tabs at this time.

It is time consuming (and also surprising how big the dash is sitting outside the car) but since the OP seems willing to do a thorough job on the carpet, seems likely he'd do the dash as well.

Pulling the dash is a simple task but once you throw in 20 years of people add/removing radios, gauges, and other stuff it can become quite a wiring mess and really up the difficulty level. When I removed my dash I found many wires woven through various peices.

hey man i just did this a month ago ur gona wana pull it out
u have 3 bolts near the window
2 bolts on the left and right behind the vents that hook up to the door
4 under the center dash and 1 fuking pop pin pull hard and break that
2 bolts that hold the stering wheel to the dash frame and presto
the gagues pull straight out and pull the white tab on the speedomiter 1st to pull the cable out
disconnect the radio ect
that should about do it goodluck

this is very true. there is a ton of dirt and buildup on and within the dash

there is a dash removal thread in the archives.It was handy when I removed mine to Dye it.I changed out the whole interior from Burgundy to Blue..I love the new look..Soothing!..

took me less than 2 hours the other day to remove the dash from my old vert, I hadn't read anything about removing and had to find all the bolts myself, if I had to do it again it would probably take me less than 30 mins tho.......if you can find a simple writeup to removing it it should be easy......I didn't have to remove the steering wheel though so I dunno what that post was about