Herald Carpet Advice

[TRock]

Hello All!

I have come to the point of my project where I am beginning to rebuild things in my 1969 Herald 13/60 Convertible, and one important part I need to sort out soon is the carpet. The old ones (which I beleive are aftermarket, although not sure) were in a rotten and torn state, and so I have been looking online for a new set, including boot mat.

I want a black carpet with black edging that is functional, hardwearing and of course aesthetically pleasing. I am not wanting to complete a concours restoration at all, as I am planning to daily drive it in the future as an ongoing project of sorts.

I am on a bit of a budget, but would be prepared to splash out if that is the best option. There seem to be a lot of different options from different sellers. These include moulded vs stitched, cut pile/deep pile/hessian backed/auto velor and underlay. I also would be interested there are generally any problems regarding fitting shape, especially the cheaper ones at the around £100 mark on eBay and James Paddock.

I was wondering if anyone could offer advice on who my best option to go with from their own experiences.

Many thanks in advance,

T Rock

[scotty71]

i fitted the newton moulded carpets, which fitted very easy.  but you do need to glue some of it down, due to edges try to curl up behind the front seats.

[garyf]

I also fitted the Moulded Newton Commercial carpets during the rebuild of my Vitesse and the fit was excellent, especially around the tricky Gearbox tunnel area?

They are not cheap though, listed at £266 on the Canley Site  

You will find with the cheaper carpets that the fit, especially around the Gearbox Tunnel will not be good, it just depends how bothered your are?

[Jonny-Jimbo]

It's still possible to find NOS carpets on ebay etc, although usually they seem to be the smaller bits, and rarely are they the main floor carpet.

[bxbodger]

Don't buy the cheapo £100ish non moulded ones if you're worried about fit, the fit is terrible. You would have thought the people who make them would at least try and get an approximation to the right size but they're nowhere near. Carpets are too an extent disposable in a convertible, and you don't want to spend too much on them, and I don't expect Wilton, but I do expect them to be reasonably close size and shape wise.

[Nick Jones]

I made my own as the "cheap" ones are not very cheap but are VERY poor.  The better ones are very expensive for what they are IMO.

I bought a roll of car carpet (red, but blue, black and grey were available too) from a stand at a classic car show.  This is pretty decent quality and was under £ 30 (was about 10 years ago).  They also had the hessian style underlay but I left that and used a foam one instead

Like this http://www.underlay4u.co.uk/carpet-underlays.html - either 9mm or 11mm I think.

I also changed the design a bit to make life easier for myself.  This involved cutting and sticking carpet directly to the floor along the sides and then making four "drop in" sections; a big one that goes under the seats and does the rear footwells plus one each for the front footwells and the tunnel cover.  The first three are pretty easy and came out well.  The tunnel cover is not.  I was fortunate enough to have the moulded underlay recovered from an original set that was in fair condition so I used that as a base and recovered it.  Came out ok-ish.  What I'd have done without that..... I dunno.  Likely would have involved tape and glue!

Nick

[daver clasper]

Just wondering if broad strips of Velcro would be an alternative to glue, as these cars can leak inside.

[TRock]

Thanks everyone for the quick input! The advice is very useful.

Thanks for sharing your pics Nick, you did a good job. It looks tidy.

I think, however, I have decided to bite the bullet and get a set of Newtons carpets. They do look like the best option and hopefully should last a long time in top condition. The installation sounds like it should be easy also.

Interesting idea Daver Clasper, velcro sounds like a good solution in terms of ease of removal. It also saves having to drill holes for the pop buttons. Has anyone tried velcro before?

Possibly somthing like these would do:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Genu.....kHWLJuWtCiUhcWJK9jig
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1m-2.....LVPXk38dCmTgMtrT-vHg

Tom

[Bitumen Boy]

I think velcro could work quite well. The one problem I would expect would be fixing the one side to the carpet - I can't see the self adhesive stuff sticking for long, though the other side onto the panelwork should be OK so long as the paint is good. If you had access to an industrial sewing machine that would be ideal, though a good liquid glue - NOT water based, for obvious reasons - may do the trick.

[heraldcoupe]

If you go for the Newton set, get all parts out of the box and check them thoroughly before doing any trimming.

When properly made they are an excellent fit, but I have worked with two sets where the carpet had been poorly centred in the mould. Result was an excess at one edge, while cut short on the opposite side. Trimming small sections to fit and making the seams disappear was never my idea of fun, I felt that for the asking price, quality control left much to be desired,

Cheers,
Bill.

[daver clasper]

Though I suggested the Velcro, my car has fitted carpets, secured along the bottom of door aperture with alloy strip, tucked under bottom of rear seat and fastened under the side footwells, under the side card. by self tappers. It's neat and doesn't move about.

Sticking velcro to underside of carpet. Maybe PVA to prime it, then contact adhesive.

[Rosbif]

To stop the carpets in the front footwells moving I glued Velcro, or we call it in France "scratch", to the underside of the top piece and it holds itself to the carpet underneath. Make sure you use the part of the Velcro with the hooks. I used contact adhesive.
I works a treat.

[griffipaul]

Anybody any experience of James Paddock moulded carpets, they are a little cheaper than Newton Comm price at £239.
They could well be from  Newton or Adridge Trimming - anybody know.

[Jordon T]

My Herald's moulded carpet set came from James Paddocks.
Irrelevant really, as all of the molded carpet sets within the UK are manufactured by newton commercials.