| Carpeting
From the outset we had intended to carpet the interior of the Defender,
as the standard rubber matting didn't fit in with our plan.
We purchased the carpet from All
Wheel Trim @ Billing 2004. It is an automotive carpet designed
for BMW. The carpet cost £14.00 per metre and we needed 5
running metres to cover every surface except the rear floor.
The carpet has a fine pile and rather than a woven substrate it
has a smooth nonporous glue/plastic backer. This means that it won't
fray and also it provides an ideal gluing surface.
First thing to do was to roughly measure all the defender surfaces
and tessellate these on paper - including provision for the weft
of the carpet which runs along the length of the roll. We then marked
out the sections and cut them out using a stanley knife (if you
cut from the back side, just through the backer, it makes light
work of it).
Toeboards: We decided to
use the existing rubber matting in the toeboards as a support for
the carpeting. We shaved the LR soundproofing off the back as we
had installed our own soundproofing and they would stick out too
far from the bulkhead. It is a simple case of rough cutting and
trimming - allow plenty of overlap on angled joins because it is
pretty frustrating to lay something up and discover that it's too
short. When you are happy with the fit it is a simple matter of
contact-adhesiving both surfaces, allowing the glue to cure, and
sticking them down (carefully).
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| Layout |
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Soundproofed cab |
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Covering toeboard |
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Contact adhesive |
Seatboxes: These are pretty
complicated because they contain compound angles. It is definitely
worth putting a cardboard template together and using this as a
rough guide (Again remembering the direction of the weft). A handy
tip - if you have some form of soundproofing on the seatboxes is
to use drawing pins to hold the carpet in place while you trim it.
Clamps can also be used to supply tension. Anywhere there is an
exposed seam the carpet was stitched to itself and a cover was glued
over the stitches for added strength. We felt this was particularly
important and the corner of the seatbox as it will take quite a
bit of punishment. This complete just contact adhesive it into place
- starting at the rear of the side of the seatbox and working around.
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| Finished toeboard |
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Toeboard in place |
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Laying up seatbox |
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Glueing and Stitching |
Tunnel: The compound curves
and asymmetry of the tunnel make it easily the hardest bit to carpet.
On the drivers side of the tunnel there is a space between the tunnel
and handbrake for a centrally seated passenger's foot. We actually
padded this space out with soundproofing to flatten out the curve,
which is of no consequence as we have a cubby box instead of a centre
seat. We also padded out other curves so that we could use a single
unbroken piece of carpet to cover the tunnel.
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| Tight fit |
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Finished seatbox |
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Passenger seatbox |
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Tunnel back |
Edging: To finish off any
exposed edges we made up our own trim from a sheet of grey vinyl.
The picture below illustrates this - it's easily done and neatens
up the edges like around the gearstick gaitor.
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| Making edging |
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Edged ope |
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Finished driver footwell |
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Bulkhead cover |
Bulkhead and rear: The rest
of the carpetting is relatively easy - just lots of large flat areas.
We decided not to carpet the rear floor as it will often be carrying
boots, tools and bags of coal.
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| Be that professional |
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Rear edged bulkhead |
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Rear seatboxes |
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Summary: The carpeting took
a while as it is pretty slow-going. That said the results are great
and it also further improves the sound deadening. |
