I have been working on my 53 Merc. HT coupe over the last few months and am ready to install new carpet. I looking for opinions from anyone who has purchased one of the pre molded carpets on the market and would appreciate some feed back re where they purchased it from, the quality of the product, and was the price comparative to the item received?
ACC ( Auto Custom Carpets) is about the only company that makes and sells carpets for old Fords (among others). They sell their carpets to other retailers who usually discount them so your better off not buying direct. One such company is Stock Interiors I'm sure there must be others, but I do not know about them.
Thanks Paul 2748 I will check into this further. I found this on eBay yesterday but know nothing about there finished product. https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Complete-Lo...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649
I put Stock Interiors carpet in my wagon. Had a couple little nuances to overcome but not too bad to put in. Buy 2 or 3 rolls of carpet tape. It will be your best friend when laying the carpet in.
That's not the moulded carpet you asked about, but the cut and sewn that I think Joe was thinking when he said you won't find a moulded carpet. www.automotiveinteriors.com out of Mass. is another source for the ACC carpet.
Not impressed at all with ACC, I wish I would have the carpet custom sewn by a local shop. It did not fit well at all. If you visit my blog page at hotrodreverend.com I have a couple of posts complete with photos and write ups and all. Let me get you a link
The ACC carpet that I bought and installed into my 55 Sunliner did not fit well but I thought it was because of mods that I had done. Took it out and trashed it, had the upholstery guys carpet it for me.
glue down yardage: I was pretty picky about the colors I wanted........just wasn't going to happen with a premade carpet. Took a few hours, lol.
I got the carpet and the tan vinyl on the dash and trim at Sunbelt Fabrics in the DFW area. The carpet is surprisingly flimsy by design. I had an upholstery guy explain it has to be to get it to conform, and it gets it's strength from the fact it's glued down. It is fairly expensive, definetly not a cheaper route to go, but it gives all kinds of options. It's very tedious to lay down. I can elaborate on installation if anyone is interested. It is flexible like a heavy canvas cloth.
I have never had to do a rug in any of my cars until now hence my original question to you all. I realized that the add I was actually wondering about was exactly what Paul2748 mentioned in his original reply. I now know from some of your replies and a lot of online searching that there are no moulded carpets offered for our early cars. They are all cut and sew only. I new I could get some straight and honest answers from the guys on this board and I am glad I asked my question here. There were few reviews that I could find on this company and out of the seven I did find only one was positive. However they have obviously had a reasonably good run or they would not still be in business. Either that or everyone just lives with what they get because there little to no competition. Texas57 I am impressed with your interior it really looks good and I like your colour choices. I do have a couple of questions on your rug. did you have to cut and sew any of the toe board and tunnel areas or were you able to just stretch it into place over the contours? I for one would be very interested in having you elaborate more on your carpet install.
link referenced above: https://www.hotrodreverend.com/post/2018/05/07/1955-ford-part-49-carpet-installation
Thanks The yardage isn't all that stretchy. The backing on it is 1/4" netting, for lack of a better word. It's not a solid semi-rigid backing like you would have on household carpet. There are cuts that have to be made in it similar to what and where you can see on a cut and sewn carpet. The toe board/tunnel area being the main one. It's easy to see it takes more inches to go up and over the tunnel than it does to go straight across the firewall above the tunnel.....thus the cutting. Think of it like a carpet in your house where they seam it at doorways, etc. I wouldn't even try it with a looped carpet, but with a plush carpet like what I used, a novice can hide the seams as they are glued down with very careful cutting. My carpet is all one piece. The roll width was just wide enough to get up high enough on the firewall, and reach the underside of the back seat. I don't remember all the details.....I did it in '12. I'll start with a picture of what was under the carpet. the insulation (dynamat type stuff) on the tunnel in the forground. and on the far side of the wires is a 3/8 layer of jute w/ aluminum facing. What I was doing in the pic was building a channel with the jute for the wiring so there would be no lumps. this is a shot getting closer to finishing. I bring up the jute padding because it needs to be also glued down really really well. If you do add the backing, you will notice when you get it that the alum. facing isn't stuck real well to the jute. That's a good thing, because you won't be able to get the padding to conform to the floorboard unless you pull off the facing. Once you do that, you can easily conform/glue the jute to the floorboards, then use a stronger glue to reapply the facing. To be cont......
You need to use a strong glue. None of the spraycan glues will hold long term, nor are strong enough. Additionally, those spraycans will cost a lot more than using a professional grade glue. The trim shops use Weldwood contact adhesive for Landau roofs. You can pick up a cheap spraygun at Harbor Freight for 20ish. I use the one that has a blue spray head. You want their biggest spray tip they have (2mm?) I had to thin the adhesive about 10% with acetone to get it to spray well. You can leave the glue in the gun for a week or more. A gallon of that glue is about 27 bucks last time I bought.....lots cheaper than a box of spraycans. Acetone is an ingredient of the glue, so a perfect thinner and clean-up. Lay your carpet out making sure it's positioned correctly. Leave a bunch at the sides for trimming after it's all installed. You will have to glue/work a small area at a time..spraying the glue on both surfaces as you go. The adhesive is strong, so you need to be real carefull laying it down once the area to be worked is sprayed with glue...you DO NOT want to be pulling the carpet back up to adjust once the glue has grabbed or you will tear the facing on the padding. If I remember (I really don't), I would have started by gluing down a small strip along the top of the tunnel. I'm pretty sure, but not positive, I did not have a cut along the tunnel top. I may have though, as I knew the console would cover it. There definetly is a cut where the toeboard meets the tunnel.to be cont.....
Look real close at the second pic in post number 10. You will see some dark streaks between where the tools are and the date stamp. Those "streaks" are actually the inevitable small wrinkles your gonna get when the carpet is glued down, but they can be hid. A positive wrinkle will have a little ridge of carpet fiber sticking up. I trimmed them flush with a small electric razor. A negative wrinkle (what looks like dark streaks) actually has the carpet fiber caught in that wrinkle. It's tedious, but you can pull those fibers out of the wrinkle with a pick tool, and the wrinkle will disappear. I've got 32k miles of usage on the carpets with no floormats, and it needs a good cleaning, but there are no wear spots even where a heel pad would normally be.
The tips and tricks from Jeff Lilly from the "Sticky Faq" has this https://www.jefflilly.com/build-tips/carpet-install/
Texas57 that is a great walk through on your carpet install and a look at your interior. If I didn't know we were talking about a 57 ford and the fact that I know the contour of the windshield and door post I would think I was looking at a modern Lincoln interior. That must be a quiet ride compared to the original factory installed interior. I can tell there was a lot of thought and time put into your car. Thanks for replying. Jeff thank you for the link to Jeff Lilly's very informative carpet install from a professional installer. And Danman55 I can see why you were unhappy with the fit of your carpet. I will definitely be doing a lot more research before jumping into purchasing or installing one myself. I want to thank everyone that replied with information regarding this.
Thanks Thriftmaster...........my first and only interior, lots of hours just sittin and looking trying to design things in my head, lol. "Quiet ride".............my wife would say definetly not. "Lincoln interior"..funny you mentioned that. A Lincoln Mark VIII that supplied the drivetrain for my car was the inspiration for my interior. Funny note.....that console's framework started out life as the arms on a metal porch swing. Very nice walkthru on the link that Jeff posted from Lilly. He talked about fit issues that I was wondering about when guys posted fitment issues........using padding to make it fit better. I was also surprised to see the "plastic" backing that can be heated to reshape. I'm guessing it's similar to making patch panels fit before welding them on.......only close enough so that it's better than nothing
I went with Stock Interior carpet, came in 2 pieces. It could have been 3/4" wider at the toe kicks, otherwise went right in.
Just an update for you on Auto Custom Carpets. I contacted then regarding the possibility of having a replacement cut and sew carpet made for my Merc that's in my Avatar. I figured because it is a cut and sew they could make this for me less the gas pedal cut out and the throttle rod hole as I welded mine shut and put a modern hang down pedal on the firewall. They were very apologetic but had to informed me that it was not possible to make me a replacement carpet for my car in the configuration I was requesting. They us a steel stamping die when they cut our carpets and it automatically cuts all the holes and seam slices at the same time and then they sew the carpet together.
That is odd Thriftmaster, I ordered the carpet for my Sunliner with that exact request and they sent it that way. Isn't that strange. May have to do with who you talk to.
I agree with Joe. I'm going to take a wild guess that they are using what's called a "steel rule die" for punching tooling. Steel rule dies are used for short run production work. Due to the nature of the beast, it would be enormously expensive to have "steel dies" ,as one would picture when they called it that, for something like a carpet. A steel rule die is made using Canadian rock hard maple plywood. Thin slots (1/16) are precision cut into the plywood, and hardened & ground steel strips are inserted into the slots, protruding up out of the plywood so they can do the punching.. The strips are used for large feature punching, solid custom made steel punches are made for smaller features, such as holes, and are also inserted into the plywood. All of these strips and dies need to be removed occasionally for sharpening. See where I'm going with this? It shouldn't be a big deal to remove the punches for the holes not wanted when they are processing your order
This is obviously a bit off topic, but steel rule dies in today's high tech industry are pretty much a thing of the past just like the rest of the trades any of us old time craftsmen were taught. NC machines, laser cutters, water jets, etc etc all started replacing short run tooling back in the 70's and 80's. I have no idea what's out there for modern equiptment in today's world. We know they do laser cutting for wood without burning, so maybe that's what they're using for carpet, upholstery, clothing, etc as well. But they did mention steel stamping die, so that's what got me thinking. I need a nap.
If you have a color/pattern that you want to use, ACC sells material so you can have a local uphosterer make up the carpet. That is what I did for my 54.
You may all be right in your****umptions. The fellow I was dealing with got back to me four different times as he needed to speak with the people in the production shop to get answers to my questions or so he said. Texas 57 you may well be right re the steel rule dies because I to know how expensive it is to have steel die stamping molds made and I found it odd that they would go to that expense for cut and sew carpet. I will check out SMS carpets thanks for the info and if all else fails I will see about buying the carpet and going from there. Thx Guys
I'm familiar with steel rule dies. Most of these carpets are fairly generic. Mine had the pad for the gas pedal, no hole required for the gas pedal on my '59. The grommet for the dimmer was loose and I had to cut that.
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