Discovering what's under the old seats and carpet - air vents, holes, loose cover plates, and grot!!

[MJW16]

Evening all,

This weekend's upgraditis has me stripping out the old seats and carpet ready for recent purchases to go in - black carpet (bulkhead and tunnel sides), Caterham rubber foot well mats, and a nice pair of black leather s-type seats.  Tunnel top will be next on the shopping list.

The old seats came out easily enough.  The carpet has put up a hell of a fight though and taken up most of the day as it had been fitted with a combination of contact adhesive and Gripfill!  Getting there now though.  I've attached some before and during photos.

Under it all I've found a some things to sort...

• A fair few holes drilled historically by previous owners and no longer used.  Varying from 2-3mm (will probably just put a rivet in those) to larger ones that will need a blind grommet.
• There's two aluminum cover plates on the top of the transmission tunnel - one over the gear selector, the other at the back of the tunnel above where the prop meets the diff.  Both were loose and had missing fixings, so wouldn't have been doing a great job of keeping noise or water out.  I'll get the fixings sorted, but should here be a seal around these plates?
• Where the floor meets the sides of the foot well there's evidence in a couple of places of brown discoloration peeking out from under the black trim.  It makes sense to do something with this before the new carpet/mats go in.  I guess just clean out the grot as best I can and get some ACF-50 in there.  Would anyone suggest a different plan of attack?
• There is a circular air vent in the end of each foot well as seen in the photos.  It looks aftermarket/homemade - I'd assume it isn't a Caterham part as on the engine bay side it's just  a foot or so of flexible aluminum duct held up with cable ties.  Presumably a previous owners attempt to get some air flow through the foot well, but it doesn't appear to be very effective and isn't the prettiest job.  I'm tempted to remove and blank off.  Has anyone got a similar arrangement on their car?

Any thoughts very welcome.

Thanks

[timb2117]

wow good on ya MJW.

Holes in front footwell I cant see but would cover up with at least fresh alloy panel riveted and sikaflexed in place - its supposed to slow fire down from engine bay, not duct it onto your toes:)

I am sure you know this but the one next to where your left knee sits, adjacent to gear lever is access to work on the gearbox drive for your speedo.

Looks like you're doing a great job and I always try to belt and brace these jobs with maybe some heatproofing in the passenger side to reduce radiant heat from exhaust?

Well done looks good and thorough.

[Wrightpayne]

I've done a bit of '4 way stretch' carpeting on my VW transporter and the recommended glue is High Temperature contact adhesive. I got mine from Harrison trim supplies.

The ally tunnel looks like its been stood on. I think it will be difficult to replace the whole tunnel - I wonder if you could get a short piece of ally rolled and fit a secondary piece fixing on the upper rivets just to get the shape back? 
 

regards

Ian

[MJW16]

Cheers,

I completely agree on the belt and braces.  Rude not to do proper job whilst everything's stripped out.  I'll be making sure all holes that shouldn't be there get filled and sealed.  Good shout on some heat proofing too. Any recommendations on a good product that can be fitted under the carpet?

Mike

[Jonathan Kay]

Some reports of heat insulation in the archives.

Jonathan

[Jonathan Kay]

"I am sure you know this but the one next to where your left knee sits, adjacent to gear lever is access to work on the gearbox drive for your speedo."

It's also possible to cut a hole to make it easy to access the gearbox filler plug if you want.

Jonathan

[MJW16]

Hi Ian,

Yes the curved ally of the tunnel top has had quite a beating over the years by the looks of it!

A new piece of rolled ally would be good if was staying exposed.  As it's going to be under carpet or a vinyl/leather tunnel top though, i thought maybe a couple of strips of self adhesive sound deadening in the low spot might flesh it out and do the job?

Mike

[timb2117]

Hi I tried sending a  link but it wouldn't work, if you go on ebay and search "car heat shielding" you will come up with a ton of silvered/ foamed stuff, at pretty cheap prices - that's the big roll here:

.

I also use a lot of the turbo wrap type stuff in bottom of photo, its a chunk more expensive but is glass fibre matting with adhesive and silvered finish, also the preformed strip is actually a tube that goes over wiring, called here non imaginatively -  "heat wrap"

I guess to bear in mind though is that these are particularly good at reflecting radiated heat so I have lined the firewall with the product on the ENGINE side, but I reckon the foam cannot hurt under your carpets in the footwell.

[Drumster]

Holes in the floor panels are always good to let the water drain out once you and the car having suffered a soaking!

The covers on the front and rear of the tunnel are only bolted on via rivnuts, at least they are on my 7 (1993 de dion chassis) and I never seen any water ingress. 

That tunnel looks more like someones hammered a trench into it! Mine does'nt look like that after years of standing on it.

I'm not sure of the need to put heat-proofing anywhere other than the footwells. Never known the tunnel to feel that hot with carpets even in the midst of a heatwave.

[NS]

I used Velcro to secure some of the carpet in my 1996 de Dion. Definitely at the bottom behind the seats and on the side of the tunnel to allow access to the speedo angle drive.  Admittedly it has a vinyl tunnel cover for the handbrake and gear lever.  During the build I  enquired why there wasn't any under-seat carpet in the kit per the assembly guide and was informed CC had stopped providing it because it was hidden by the seats (S-type).