Has anyone purchased new carpet for their 87-88 'Bird. If you were happy with it, where did you get it?
Trying to stay as close to factory as possible.
My carpet was in good shape but got really bad water damage Stinks to high heaven. Thanks!
:birdsmily:
Since yours is in nice condition take it out and pressure wash it. I just did that to my wifes jeep. That carpet looks brand spanking new. Make sure you let it dry before you reinstall it. Oh yeah it will get rid of that smell too!
Tryed that already. Took 2 weeks to dry here in Florida. Its actually the wool backing that stinks, like a wet blanket or a wet wool coat.
I peeled the backing off my carpet, and I swear the garbage can weighed 80lbs!
But I'd be curious to know about carpet in the future too.
I talked to, I think, AAC at a carshow in Knoxville a few years ago, and they said they could make carpet for anything.
A friend of mine ordered carpet from JCWhitney and it was the most awful fitting carpet We'd ever seen. He ended up getting carpet out of an 88 TC. I did the same thing for my 88, I got black carpet out of an 86 Elan and pressure washed the whole thing for an hour. Depends on what kind of soap you use. Here in Ohio mine only took a day to dry. With your carpet taking 2 weeks to dry bacteria is more than likely growing and thats probably what you smell. Mine smelled like piss and so did my buddies. Turned it into new smelling carpet.
See and I didn't have any problems with mine. I guess its just luck of the draw if you will have problems or not.
Strip the padding off the back of the carpet and spray them separate. Then lay them out in the sun. The best would be to have them hanging over something so it can hang there in the sun. With out the padding on there the wifes dried in a couple of hours in the sun. The padding too. No more smell and it looks great. I did the same thing the first time I did it with the padding on there it took forever to dry out.
proline carpet from nifty products offers replacement carpet for the 83-88 t bird in black, blue, and grey.
black - 830201
blue - 830204
grey - 830211
i've used their products before and have had great success with them.
I have been using ACC carpeting for about 10 years. There are good and bad things about it.
GOOD: Fits PERFECTLY, no tpuppies required. Has correct heel pad. Excellent selection of colors. Priced at about $120 US. Shipping is incredibly fast.
BAD: Have had some fading problems. Thin...much thinner than even base model Cougar/T-Bird carpeting. Cannot return custom colors.
In the past 6 years I've had a dark charcoal grey, dark blue, and Regatta Blue carpeting from ACC in the convertible. Each time I changed the carpeting out of choice (wanted color change) but I was disappointed that the navy blue carpeting seems to have faded. True, it's in a convertible...but it's almost never left out in the sun with the top down, unless I'm at a show. It should not have faded like that in just two summers. At first I thought it was dirt but alas, it was definitely faded.
Can I recommend ACC? Yes. It's generally good stuff for the money. But it's not nearly as good as factory carpeting. As suggested, if you can get decent factory carpeting, it's well worth your time to clean it up and use it first.
Jims carpet was very thin, like puppiesanese car thin. It was a two piece design and the grain on the front half ran diagonal. In the corners where the carpet laid down by the kick panels it was actually cut and sewn. Looks like it was made from a flat piece of carpet and sewn to make something that kind of fit.
Isn't there a guy on eBay that sells new carpeting and headliners for these cars? I don't search eBay very often anymore because it's absolute agony on dialup, but I do remember seeing it on there before...
Oh I bought the one piece carpet. I just had to cut the holes for the center console mount and seat mounts. Everything else was real nice on it.
I couldn't find that exact person but I did find this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/83-84-85-86-87-88-Mercury-Cougar-Carpet_W0QQitemZ190097945499QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item190097945499
Can't tell if this is an ACC reseller or not...the part numbers don't match up with the ACC ones, anyway. But there you go.
From what I understand there are only a handful of carpet manufacturers in the U.S. and everyone that sells carpeting uses these companies.
How'd you get the backing off? The bit that I attempted shredded rather than peal off.
I shredded my backing off, pealed it in chunks, whatever it took. I then got some new padding, not the foam, from a carpet store. It was thick but weighed a ton less than the old pad. It worked great.
When I talked to AAC, I thought they had several grades of carpet, but it has been a few years. They did tell me they could make carpet to fit any floorpan, as I plan to put a different chassis with a fabricated floorpan in my next Bird body. I think they told me they use steam to heat the plastic backing of the carpet and form it ito place. But I've never seen it done.
I used a bondo spreader to se it off of there.
i sell both nifty and acc, and i'll tell you this... i get about 10 calls a month complaining about the acc product and i've never gotten a call complaining about nifty. the main complaint i get is what you mentioned... it's too thin.
I ordered an ACC carpet for my Capri a few years ago and I thought it was too thin to use in the Cougar for that OE look.
I have ordered a few samples from some companies and the closest that I have found to the original 24 oz. used in the LS & XR-7 Cougar's is from Auto Mat Co. in NY.
I ordered a sample of both their “Nylon Pile” and their "Nylon Dense Pile" and their dense pile sample is a very close match to my original 24oz. carpet.
http://www.autointeriors.biz/Carpeting/2006_AutoMat_Carpet_PDFs/2006_AutoMat_Materials.pdf
Brent
:cougarsmily:
Brent, I hate to say it but...those numbers and color names perfectly align with ACC. Just checked @ http://www.accmats.com. Maybe they just buy in bulk from ACC. But it looks like this company also sells in bulk and lets you assemble the carpeting yourself; the heel pads are separate, etc. So that's pretty cool. If you trust them then they're worth recommending.
I know ACC sells thicker carpeting also, but the color selection is very limited. For what I needed for the convertible I HAD to go with their lower line. Fortunately my upholstery shop gave me a price just a hair over cost; carpeting + install was a mere $150. I couldn't beat that with just ordering the carpeting myself. A quick check just showed a cost of $190 for just the carpeting if I were to order directly from ACC. Remember: carpeting uses petroleum, so as gasoline prices fluctuate, so does the cost of carpeting.
What's also important is that you get good color samples. It's impossible to match colors with Internet swatches. That is another area where having an upholstery shop on retainer is definitely handy. My shop lets me bring home "the" sample carpet rings home over the weekend if I need them. How cool is that! ;)
-hate to here that about ACC eric, their corprate offices are downtown here where i live and one of their "factories" is just a minute down the road from my house. ive seen them selling everywhere (shows) and i bought one for my '93 SHO back in 1999. it was black, and so far still is, but it never sees sun like your car does, though. at the time it was their top of the line also, so who knows, maybe its the fabric or dye, or ????
$150 for the product plus installation is a hell of a price considering retail on the nifty carpet is $227, then you've got to pay to have it installed (if you don't do it yourself.).
ACC is billed as the largest auto carpet manufacturer in the U.S. and I can believe it. They're the company that everyone seems to use, perhaps because they offer carpeting for just so many types of older vehicles. It's just that I've had a little bad luck with some of their past colors. The carpeting itself held up, just the colors faded for whatever reason. And I think there's only a one-year warranty, which kind of sucks...you'd think the company would back their product longer if they really believed in it.
On the other hand, once when I called ACC directly to order, maybe about 3-4 years ago, the sweet-sounding chica on the phone said she'd put my order in right away. Two days later--yes, TWO DAYS--the box appears on my doorstep. In Ohio. They must have molded the carpeting immediately and shipped that day. But it came UPS standard ground to Ohio from Alabama, no rush charge. I still remain amazed at how that happened!
I think the carpet I picked up for the '80 is ACC as well. I needed that nifty Dark Russet color ;). I haven't gotten it in the car yet, as it didn't have a windshield until yesterday :hick:
A few people on the ASC/McLaren board were also experiencing the same issues with the ACC carpeting fading in a short amount of time. After hearing that, and with their "regular" carpet that I bought from them seeming pretty thin, I never contacted them for samples but maybe I should since it appears they may be the actual aftermarket supplier for most of the vendors out there after all.
FWIW, of the samples I got, #1068 dense pile is very close to my original in color. It doesn't have the "sheen" that the O.E. carpet does when the sun hits it, but the color is a good match.
I wish we could just order the O.E. stuff from either Ford or the original supplier; then the quality issue wouldn't even be a factor.
BTW, I too was surpised at how heavy my carpet was when I pulled it out so last night I put it on the scales and it came in at a hair over 40 lbs!
Brent
:cougarsmily:
My carpet cost me $130 and it fits perfectly. It was molded to fit my T-Bird
I used ACC for a 64 Galaxie and a 69 Torino, both black, and they both fit perfectly. We also bought ACC carpet for my son's 87 TC, but we haven't installed it yet because the project is so far behind schedule. (I'm sure none of you can relate to that.) My carpets never faded at all, but they're not in ragtops.
-Just heard the news this morning, ACC is buying out a company in Dalton,Ga that makes auto carpet. they will take over and then slowly close it down in order to end the competition. moving all the jobs to alabama.....
My best source for carpet has been pulling it out of a junk car and power washing the snot out of it. :hick: Of course I've only ever been after black.