Whats your experience with carpets/install?

[Bill C.]

Whats your experience with carpet?

Wondering what experience others have had with carpet install on 65-67 cars.

I have installed lots of Al knochs sets and Auto Custom Carpet.

Yesterday for first time a customer brought me a full carpet set he purchased from Mid America Corvette in 2005 for his 67 coupe, yep been in box all that time. I was immediately skeptical about the inevitable creases, etc. I would be struggling to eliminate.
But, it was packed and shipped in a very large box, could have put 4 door panels in it

When I removed it from the box I was impressed at how it still felt very pliable and the carpet had the silver backed jute already glued to the back. It was very densely woven and had "meat" to it, some others I can hold up to light and actually see light thru it, not this.

Customer had me install in his coupe dynamat extreme, found it very easy to work with. It was immediately apparent this product was doing what it was designed to do, it absolutely eliminated all the "drumming" and "cheap empty bathtub" sound. Very impressed and compared to the last repo underlayment I used, was a breeze to use!

This would be an excellent choice of product to use in 63-64 cars as it would fit and be undetectable, those cars originally used nothing under the carpeting, it was basically cheap indoor /outdoor carpet with just a thin layer of foam attached.

I had in the past also used the thin silver "bubble wrap" type of wrap found in Home supply stores designed as duct wrap, it did help, and was inexpensive, but this was far superior, pricey yes, each will decide whats suitable for his ride.

The last stuff I got from Al Knoch, very heavy, thick matting with the heavy black backing. This was a pretty good exact match to the factory installed product but just as expensive as dynamat and was very, very difficult to install, had to use a heat gun to get it down around the wheel houses. Easily took 6-8 hours to install!

Acoustically its about the same as the dynamat, we shall see when its on the road, I was very happy with the Al Knock underlayment performance and that was in a convertible. Gave it a nice "feel" even with side pipes

After the dynamat I began to install the carpet, thinking, here we go, this will take all day , when I layed out the pcs on the wheel houses I was pleased! They FIT. Period. Very pliable, no creases, hardly any t*******. Ok, got lucky I thought.

Moved to the floor/bulkhead pc, again no creases fit well from under the window to the jack board, nicely around the diff hump, , luggage stop fit flawless,without any t*******.
Both side of the fronts fit equally as well, best I have used, no wrinkles around the trans tunnel at all, requiring minimum t*******, which I really do not mind but they FIT.

Only drawback I saw is the heel pad is not correct size, its much bigger than original which means nothing in this case, but to the purist would. Hard to understand why they cannot use the correct size when no further effort is required. I was impressed with the looks of the carpet, loop and "fuzz" level good, I was happy with the color, its 67 bright blue, actually the best match I have seen, most others are way too light IMO.

All in all, it was a pleasant job with pleasant results.

No, I have no connection to Mid-America or dynamat and have never even purchased anything from them.

So, here's my question, how come nobody has anything good to say about Mid america carpet ? Anyone else used it? Has anyone asked them about supplying the correct heel pad? AK and Auto Custom Custom are the only ones anyone talks about. Current pricing is very competitive also! As I understand it , this line was bought up from Johns when he went out.

Next set I purchase it will be theirs although I will call first to get a promise of it being the same as what they supplied in 2005.

[Bill C.]

Re: Whats your experience with carpets/install?

Whats your experience with carpet?

Wondering what experience others have had with carpet install on 65-67 cars.

I have installed lots of Al knochs sets and Auto Custom Carpet.

Yesterday for first time a customer brought me a full carpet set he purchased from Mid America Corvette in 2005 for his 67 coupe, yep been in box all that time. I was immediately skeptical about the inevitable creases, etc. I would be struggling to eliminate.
But, it was packed and shipped in a very large box, could have put 4 door panels in it

When I removed it from the box I was impressed at how it still felt very pliable and the carpet had the silver backed jute already glued to the back. It was very densely woven and had "meat" to it, some others I can hold up to light and actually see light thru it, not this.

Customer had me install in his coupe dynamat extreme, found it very easy to work with. It was immediately apparent this product was doing what it was designed to do, it absolutely eliminated all the "drumming" and "cheap empty bathtub" sound. Very impressed and compared to the last repo underlayment I used, was a breeze to use!

This would be an excellent choice of product to use in 63-64 cars as it would fit and be undetectable, those cars originally used nothing under the carpeting, it was basically cheap indoor /outdoor carpet with just a thin layer of foam attached.

I had in the past also used the thin silver "bubble wrap" type of wrap found in Home supply stores designed as duct wrap, it did help, and was inexpensive, but this was far superior, pricey yes, each will decide whats suitable for his ride.

The last stuff I got from Al Knoch, very heavy, thick matting with the heavy black backing. This was a pretty good exact match to the factory installed product but just as expensive as dynamat and was very, very difficult to install, had to use a heat gun to get it down around the wheel houses. Easily took 6-8 hours to install!

Acoustically its about the same as the dynamat, we shall see when its on the road, I was very happy with the Al Knock underlayment performance and that was in a convertible. Gave it a nice "feel" even with side pipes

After the dynamat I began to install the carpet, thinking, here we go, this will take all day , when I layed out the pcs on the wheel houses I was pleased! They FIT. Period. Very pliable, no creases, hardly any t*******. Ok, got lucky I thought.

Moved to the floor/bulkhead pc, again no creases fit well from under the window to the jack board, nicely around the diff hump, , luggage stop fit flawless,without any t*******.
Both side of the fronts fit equally as well, best I have used, no wrinkles around the trans tunnel at all, requiring minimum t*******, which I really do not mind but they FIT.

Only drawback I saw is the heel pad is not correct size, its much bigger than original which means nothing in this case, but to the purist would. Hard to understand why they cannot use the correct size when no further effort is required. I was impressed with the looks of the carpet, loop and "fuzz" level good, I was happy with the color, its 67 bright blue, actually the best match I have seen, most others are way too light IMO.

All in all, it was a pleasant job with pleasant results.

No, I have no connection to Mid-America or dynamat and have never even purchased anything from them.

So, here's my question, how come nobody has anything good to say about Mid america carpet ? Anyone else used it? Has anyone asked them about supplying the correct heel pad? AK and Auto Custom Custom are the only ones anyone talks about. Current pricing is very competitive also! As I understand it , this line was bought up from Johns when he went out.

Next set I purchase it will be theirs although I will call first to get a promise of it being the same as what they supplied in 2005.

Almost 50 views and no comments?

[Joe R.]

Re: Whats your experience with carpets/install?

Bill,

Everybody is trying to be "Nice".

Let's just leave it at that and you can read between the lines.

JR

[Michael A.]

Re: Whats your experience with carpets/install?

Bill - Thanks for your post. It was a good read. I do believe that there is a desire among the NCRS judges to see a more authentic reproduction carpet in the market place. I was at an Illinois NCRS event at Mid America a couple of years ago and a number of the experienced interior judges made a point to Mike Yager about the more "random" weave pattern on reproduction carpets vs. the relatively precise weave pattern on originals where the rows were very straight and true. In fact one of them even showed Mike the well worn (read falling apart) original carpet in my 66 roadster to illustrate the difference.

In prepping for a long trip last summer, I installed carpet in my 66 roadster last spring. It was ACC carpet from Corvette America. I installed heat barrier and carpet insulation kit.

This was my first time installing carpet in any car, much less a Corvette. I found the carpet to be rather thin, I could see light through it, but chalked that up to authentic recreation of mid 60's Chevy carpeting. The pieces for the front fit well but my biggest hassle was installing the gas pedal. I had purchased a new gas pedal because the original was cracking at the hinge and it seemed like the right thing to do. I had cut out the insulation and heat barrier for the "block" that fits under the pedal. Try as I might I could not get the original gas pedal screws to catch the first thread. I ended up getting a 1/4" longer one at the hardware store which won't pass judging but at least I could get it to tighten down. Otherwise the front went well.

The bulkhead piece fit well but I'm not certain I got it glued down correctly. It seems like the original was glued to both sides of the bulkhead and I could not achieve the same.

The rear compartment was the biggest challenge. The insulation that came from ACC was not nearly as nice as the thick rubberized stuff that I took out. The old compartment insulation seemed really heavy duty but it was falling apart from age so I could not reuse it. The new insulation was like a cotton fill with paper covers on either side. Fitting it and the carpet to the wheel wells was the biggest challenge. I spent hours and am still not thrilled with the end result. Also locating the right position for the cutouts to accomodate the mounting bracket for the trim panels was pretty much a blind guess.

All in all I'm satisfied with the carpet but would have liked the rear compartment to have been easier to fit. Perhaps when I get to 50 sets installed it will get easier.