FD New Carpet Install and other things
 

I have a ’94 Touring model which came originally with the tan leather seats and tan carpet, black panels and black dash. The seats and carpet were well worn, and really detracted from the interior. Over the past year, I had the seats re-covered with black leather, and was looking at replacing the carpet and rear trunk mat, but was put off by the dealer’s price for OEM carpet and mat ($1400 Cdn). I had been following TFEnt’s group buy https://www.rx7club.com/group-buy-center-69/new-molded-carpet-kit-rx-7-ready-ship-gb-special-offer-627668/
for carpet and trunk mats – at $479, it was a relative bargain. So when my heater core took a dump in April, I pulled the dash to remove the core, and at that point, it was quite academic to jump onto the carpet group buy. (Pulling the dash and heater core is something I'd only want to do once – it’s quite a pain in the ass.)

There was a considerable delay in the arrival of the carpet - foul up was due to the shipping company, the vendor went out of his way to assist - great seller!!

While waiting for the carpet to arrive, I spent a few weekends stripping the interior and installed B-Quiet sound dampener. I also used a fine plastic polish to refresh the plastic and vinyl pieces. Silicon glue was applied against the sides and backs of the plastic panels, as well as foam to minimize squeaks and rattles. Tracked down some annoying squeaks behind the door panels.

Pic of the original carpet:

https://www.rx7club.com/forum/attach...1&d=1182913379

Pic of stripped interior:

https://www.rx7club.com/forum/attach...1&d=1182913379

In any case, the carpet finally arrived, and the wait was well worth it – carpet was moulded to fit the contours of the floor pan accurately, and very little trimming was required. I removed the factory rubber backing and foam, and reused it – highly recommend doing this rather than using jute padding to pad the floor – it’s a much more stock looking install. Holes for bolts and shifter were not precut, so it does take a bit of effort to install. A good carpet knife and scissor are invaluable for the cutting. Total install time for the carpet was about 5 hours, not counting the time it takes to remove dash and old carpet.

Pics of the installed carpet:

https://www.rx7club.com/forum/attach...1&d=1182913379

https://www.rx7club.com/forum/attach...1&d=1182913379

Pic of the trunk mat:

https://www.rx7club.com/forum/attach...1&d=1182913379

Reinstall of the interior took another few hours, and it took a few more hours to track down problems with the front speakers and the A/C (both not working after reinstall of the dash) – turns out both were related to loose wiring connections. Also installed a hidden antenna behind the passenger a-pillar, and new doors sills.

Overall, I’m very happy with all the work done – I now have an all black interior in A1 condition, and have gotten rid of about 90% of the interior squeaks and rattles, and have a somewhat quieter car.

BTW, I ordered way too much B-Quiet and ended up with an entire extra 50 foot roll plus some additional material. If anyone wants this, I’d be willing to part with it for a good price!

Some more pics of the interior:

https://www.rx7club.com/forum/attach...1&d=1182914815

https://www.rx7club.com/forum/attach...1&d=1182914815


https://www.rx7club.com/forum/attach...1&d=1182914815

That looks quite nice. Good job on that!

Good job, looks brand new (entire interior).

wow, that looks awesome, nice job on taking your time to put everything back perfectly

Nice JOB!! That's how I ended doing mine also.

How much???

looks great. Mine had tan seats and tan carpet. I replaced both and my car looks almost identical.

Didn't want to mention it in my original post as it's a bit depressing - the car has been an ongoing project over the past year - after finishing the interior this past weekend, I was pretty much done with it....Last bit of work completed at 3pm on Sunday. It's not my daily driver, but I took it out for a grocery run - I was stopped in traffic behind a Truck - he decided to back up to allow a car on a side street to pull out onto the main road..... and plowed right into my bumper. This happened at 4:40pm. 99 spec bumper. Car was completely repainted less than a year ago - color sanded and polished...damage is not too noticeable, but the horn no longer works and the crunching sound must have been the rebar.....estimate on bumper is 800 bucks from the insurance man, no estimate on horn and rebar yet, but I'm guessing close to $1800 bucks in total....

Beautiful upgrade with carpet, s-wheel and knob. :bigthumb:

I would get quoated on stock 93-95 parts. They might screw with you for the 99 and most likely the 99 will be cheaper. The 99 bumper comes prepainted, the 93-95 would have to get painted.

perfect!

Nice man...!! I'll eventually get around to actually pulling my carpet and replacing it with black. Mine was originally tan but I dyed it black. It came out ok.

That looks really clean! Very nice job, looks like quite a bit of work, do you know if he has tan carpet as well? Thanks,

wow that looks exactly like mine does at the mo but I had to rip all mine out for chassis rail repair!!! anyway it looks amazing, I cant wait to have mine back together again!

Thanks for the kind comments. With the restored interior, the car feels so much nicer to drive in....

Wow thats looking really nice and clean.. Good job.

Sucks about the truck backing up man.

looks great man! going to do the same to my car soon

Interior looks nice.

What material of carpet did you choose ? There are 3 or 4 to choose from ?

How much did it cost to recover the seats ?
Have them done by a regular auto aphostery guy ?

looks great! Where did you install the b-quiet? Notice any big differences, was it worth it?

I installed the B-Quiet over the entire floor pan, transmission tunnel, the rear trunk, and the doors. It definitely made an improvement. The difference is a bit subtle - the car won't suddenly turn into a tomb quiet Jaguar. What was immediately noticeable after installation was the stereo, which on the same volume setting as previous to the B-Quiet, was now a bit too loud for comfort, indicating the B-Quiet was working. Had to turn the stereo down, which was kinda nice. Was it worth it - yes!

Where did you pick up the Flying M wheel? Where in Canada you located?

The carpet was from TFEnt's group buy, the material was the 601 Black. There are many different materials and colors to chose from - look at his thread in the group buy section.

The cost to recover the seats was about $580 for the seat covers plus another $200 bucks in labour to pay an auto upholstery guy to put the seat covers on. I would definitely have a pro do this - a lot of DIY jobs seem to have lots of wrinkles, a pro job will not. This was the only part of my car's interior restoration that I paid someone else to do.

I got the wheel from RHDJapan.com . It's from a 2000 JDM FD. If you look at the picture closely, you can see that I installed the cruise control pod from my '94's steeing wheel. Works great!

I'm located on the left coast - Vancouver.

Pulling up an old thread:

Two questions - first, I can't find this carpet anywhere. I found Auto Custom Carpets - not sure if that's the same,(they offer them for sale - don't know if they are the same).
Second - the trunk carpet - in the picture, and in another install picture from someone else, it looks like the trunk carpet is slightly too large for the hatch area - with the sides coming up a little - is that the case or am I not seeing it right?

Last, I couldn't find any original thread with TFEnt as a screen name - any pointers? The original thread is gone.
Thanks,
Bob

He was in San Diego IIRC. The thread is probably gone since they delete those old GB threads. i think Gordon and others used his carpet. It looked pretty nice.