I had hoped to get this sent to the list this past weekend but I haven't had a
chance to discuss a couple of issues with Mark Walker. I called to talk with
him and found out that there was a recent tragedy suffered within his family
and he wasn't available.
Anyway, on the whole I'm happy with the carpet kit that was supplied. The
quality seems to be very nice. The coloring also seems to match quite well
with the photos in Piggotts book. The bottom of the carpet has some kind
of rubber coating on it. Might help it resist moisture to a certain extent. I
plant to ask Mark what the rubber coating actually is.
The carpet kit was a total of 14 pieces. The carpet section for the drivers
footwell fits nicely and has a nice rubber mat in the center of it. The
passenger side does NOT have the rubber mat. The two pieces that fit
under the seats also fits nicely as does the piece that covers the driveshaft
hump. There is a small 1/4 circle piece that fits the differential bump on the
rear deck and it fits fine.
The 2 pieces that cover the inner sills appear to be right but I am a little
confused as to how they fit in the car. From the looks of the cuts on it my
guess is they will fit fine.
The 2 pieces of carpet that fit on the outer side walls located in the
footwells fit nicely. However one thing about them confused me. The
parts catalogue shows that there should be a piece of hardboard on each
side wall and the carpet should be glued to it. The carpet sections supplied
each had the jut backing glued to it. I'm not sure if the jut backing would
have to be removed before gluing to the boards or not. I don't have those
boards so I couldn't play with the fit. BUT, the carpet sections themselves
seemed to fit just fine. So there is NO complaint here, just an installation
question.
There was piece supplied to be glued to the firewall around the the
transmission opening. I didn't fit that piece but from laying it out on the
floor and then comparing it to the opening it sure looked ok to me.
Now for the two areas of concern.
The rear deck mat fit nicely on top. Almost a perfect fit. However where it
folded down there is a problem with the curved cutout that fits around the
driveshaft hump. Its to hard to explain the problem with it so I've taken
some pictures and they are located at my web site. If you click on the
following URL's you can see the various pictures that I took of this area. In
all honesty the whole problem with this piece may just be my method of
installation. I don't have the rear squab in place so I couldn't really tell
for
sure where the place the carpet exactly. I do want to talk to Mark about
that piece and get his feed back. The way I had it sitting in the car I felt
it
could be done differently to provide a better fit.
Just the rear deck.
http://www.141.com/triumphs/hump-bare.jpg
Rear deck with hump covering.
http://www.141.com/triumphs/hump-rear.jpg
The last area of concern was the transmission tunnel coverings. There
were two pieces provided. I really think the upper piece I think should be
about 1 to 1 1/2" longer front to back. Placing it where I "thought" was
appropriate resulted in a little more than 1" gap up by the firewall. The
lower piece has the overall correct shape but where there should have been
a hole with a sewn edging around it for the shifter there was just a U
shaped piece of carpet cut out. This allows for part of the tunnel cover to
be exposed in that area. Again, see the photos. This was probably the
single most disturbing thing to me. I was hoping for a nice fit there. Again
I will ask Mark about this and see if there is anything that can be done to
remedy it. Worst case is I will need to get some carpet and have a local
shop correct the problem. Best case would be for the factory to correct the
problem for me.
Top half of tunnel housing.
http://www.141.com/triumphs/tunnel-top.jpg
Bottom half of tunnel housing.
http://www.141.com/triumphs/tunnel-bottom.jpg
I want to restate again that I have NOT had a chance to talk to Mark about
any of this and am with holding any judgment until I do talk so. So far all of
my dealings with him have been on the up and up and I have no reason to
think that won't be the case now. Shortly after he shipped the carpet to me
he phoned and left a message asking me to call him so we could discuss the
quality and fit of the carpet once I had a chance to look it over. Not to
many venders would do that!
Considering the carpeting was $150 plus shipping I feel it was a very good
buy even with the problems mentioned above.
Let me know if you have any specific questions and I'll try and answer them.
Brad (Lincoln Nebraska 402-464-1502)
My Web Site Http://www.141.com/triumphs (updated 2/15/99)
1964 Spitfire4 BFC25720L
1962 TR4 CT288L -- 1965 TR4 CT38888LO parts car?
1959 TR3A TS41311L -- 1959 TR3A TS53523L parts car
1951 1/2 ton Dodge Truck B-3-B-108
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