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“Fit the carpet to the trunk floor.”
Contents
Parts
- 81A – Trunk Floor Carpet
Materials: This part is made of self-adhesive TPR felt.
Build
The Trunk Floor Carpet
Step 01
Retrieve your Trunk Floor from the previous phase. Carefully peel some of the backing from the Trunk Floor Carpet, starting with the two pointed tips. Do not peel it all off until you have the cutout holes aligned to the matching holes of the Trunk Floor. Then, peel off a little more backing and carefully stretch the carpet over the contours of the floor.
I did this carpet install process in a few stages. First, I left the backing paper on and test fit it to the Trunk Floor:
Next, I decided to start on the right side, which had to fit over the post and straight tab. I peeled back about 2 inches of the backing paper from this end of the Trunk Floor Carpet and cut the backing paper off:
Then, I carefully applied it over the post/tab and slid it down into place, trying to align the edges of the carpet to the Trunk Floor:
With this first section in place, I peeled about another inch of the backing paper back and cut the paper away again:
This allowed me to secure the right ‘pointed front tip’ to the Trunk Floor and get the carpet seated around the large circular base for the fuel filler:
At this point, I felt comfortable enough to remove the rest of the backing paper and apply the carpet across the large flat center of the Trunk Floor. I had to ensure that the hole cutouts in the carpet matched the center and lower holes of the Trunk Floor:
This is where it went bad. The instructions say you can ‘stretch’ this material to the contours of the plastic floor, but it does not stretch nearly enough:
I ended up having to cut the carpet along this diagonal seam so the closer part would fit over the side holes correctly:
This let me lay the ‘pointed front tip’ down correctly:
After trying my best, I could not get the last part to fold over the edge in the right way. I finally just cut the ‘triangle’ off and stuck it to the Trunk Floor as its own piece. This area is going to be hidden by the Fuel Tank Booster Pump in the next phase anyway:
Thoughts
Whew! This phase was more challenging than I thought it would be. This material just doesn’t mold to the plastic as well as I hoped. I still feel it turned out OK and much of the edges will be hidden inside the trunk anyway.
Next Up
Phase 82 – Interior: Fuel Tank Filler Tube/Cap, Booster Pump/Motor, Tool Kit, Jack, Spare Wheel Support