Before shot

This is the interior as it was. Brown carpet. Brown console. Nice leather (brown) seats that need retrimming.

Drivers Carpet

As you can see - the old brown carpet is pretty stuffed!

New console

Here's a new console I bought. The arm rest is a reconditioned unit which has been professionally retrimmed. I picked it up on eBay for about $50. The rest of the console came from American Autos, who are a Rare Spares stockist.

New carpet

Here's the new carpet, which I bought from Tru-fit in Knox (Vic). As you can see, it moulded to suit the vehicle.

Don't assume that a van or ute will have less carpet. As you can see, there's a big piece which goes under the seat, and out to the back wall. Nearly as much carpet as a sedan. The roll of stuff is underlay, underlay (yee-ha!)

BITUMEN-UNDERLAY

Diagram of the underlay. There's a bitumen layer between the two fabric layers. Should work a treat!

Seats out

In this shot, I've take off the trims on the door sill, and removed the seats. As you can see, the previous owner only put carpet where you could see it! Didn't help with the cabin noise.....

Console Out

IN this shot the console has been removed. Steps are to remove the gear knob, unscrew the over plate at the front, then remove the two screws under that. There are two bolts holding everything down at the back (in the storage compartment).

Gone!

In this picture, the old carpet has been removed. There was some crappy fibre underlay which is also gone. The amount of crap under the carpet was unreal! Still, I found a few coins....

First piece in

In this shot, I've installed the underlay (which is 1.5 metres by 1 metre) and placed the first piece of carpet in. It's important to take time placed and push the carpet into place.

The difficult thing is to cut the hole for the gear stick - start small, and work the hole bigger and bigger until it sits in the right place. Be patient! Once you've cut something out, it's hard to put back.

Back Piece

Back piece in - again, carefully fitted in over the console mounting bracket.

Console in

This shot shows the console installed. Looks heaps better than the brown one which was there previously (now for sale!)

Job done!

Job Done! The most awkward part was to locate the mounting bolts for the seat. To do this I used a sharp scribe and pushed it through from under the floor - then used the Stanley knife to cut through the carpet and underlay around the scribe.

After the seats were mounted, I used sharp scissors to trim the edge of the carpet, and them put the kick panels and sill trims back on.

Seats are changing soon!