Carpet and the Transmission Hump

[jaxops]

I bought a Kanter carpet set long before 70 Buicks were considered a worthwhile restoration venture, and not much was available at the time. The carpet has held up very well, however, there is much too much "hump" in the carpet. My transmission hump isn't as big as the carpet allows for, therefore I have had to add padding under it to fill it out. It makes the floor "mushy" looking.

My question is this- would it be better to trim the hump down and sew it, or replace the carpet and hope that the new carpet kits are a better fit.

Anyone else suffereing from "too much hump" in the carpet? <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

[palbuick]

I had the same problem several years ago with my 70 Wildcat.

Purchased one of the form fitting carpet set. The center hump had the same problem , when I called the supplier, This is what he told me to do. You may have to heat the underside of the carpet, he said to lay it out in the sun for a couple of hours or use a heat gun to warm it up. After 3-4 hours on a nice hot sunny day I reinstalled the carpeting and it fit perfectly. I was told NOT to cut the carpeting.

I know this sounds like a lot of work, removing and installing again, but cheaper than replacing with new carpeting.

Jim Schilf / palbuick@aol.com

[BigFella]

I replaced the original carpet in my 70 electra the summer before last. I think I got the carpet from A1 Carpet...anyway, As Jim pointed out, I just laid it out in the sun a hour or so and it made the carpet nice and maluable so it could be installed. It still was not very easy to work with because of it's size. I did however have to trim the carpet a bit on the edges where it was too long and the trim pieces like the door seals would not fit back in, but it was very little trimming and all done on the outside edges. I kept all the scraps so I could match the color in the future and I had ordered extra to put in the trunk so it would also match. It's not a show car but I wanted the trunk to look nice in comparison to the rest of the interior...just my taste. A1 also had floormats and they embroiderd (?) a large Buick logo in the front mats for me. It looks great and protects my carpet from all the nasty crap your shoes pick up!

I did take some picture of the whole thing from floor pan patching, putting on a topcoat of por15, laying down the road noise/heat shield material, to putting the carpet in if your interested. Not very spectacular, but I'm trying to document anything I do for future reference.