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Interior rail trim & carpet suggestions - my experience with an MGA

Last post 02-17-2009, 7:11 PM by gswindell. 1 replies.
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  •  02-10-2009, 1:49 PM 17954

    Interior rail trim & carpet suggestions - my experience with an MGA

    Here's what I've learned from a recent interior replacement for my MGA.

    Spray on adhesive worked much better than brush on contact cement for both carpet and vinyl trim.  I used the cheapest stuff for the where low adhesion worked fine and better grades for high use places.  Buy at Lowes / Home Depot.

    For the gluing the vinyl to the door and cockpit rails, I used spray on adhesive along with gelled super glue for those places that needed to be held quickly.  The gelled superglue was a key.  No staples needed and I could not get them to go into the old hardened wood anyhow.  Getting the vinyl smooth on all parts of the rail curves is exceptionally difficult and I never mastered the technique - just good enough was what I ended with.  I don't know how the factory did it unless it was shrunk on.  Keep the old vinyl when you remove it and use for a pattern, but cut generously.

    Installing the lift-the-dot fasteners for the carpet was easier than expected.  I sharpened one end of a 1/4 inch pipe nipple and put in in a drill to cut the holes - also used a 3/8 pipe nipple similarly for larger holes but had to weld a stub on it to get it into the drill chuck.

     For  carpet padding and sound and heat insulation I ended up buying thin duct insulation from Lowes/Home Depot in a roll - like bubble wrap with aluminum foil on each side.  The spray adhesive worked very well with this, it was easy to cut and fit, and the carpet in turn was easlily spray adhesive-d on to the insulation - I'd definitely do it this way again, leaving out the padding included in the kit.

     Seats are next.

     

     

     

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  •  02-17-2009, 7:11 PM 18023 in reply to 17954

    Re: Interior rail trim & carpet suggestions - my experience with an MGA

    Seat covers are pretty easy.  You MUST get/borrow a 1/4 air driven staple gun and use 3/8-5/8 staples if you can find them.  Plan on wire brushing and painting the frames.  I used a polyfill mat and 1 x 24 x 96 foam from Wal-Mart, and put foam on the seat back-back and seat back front also.  The ability to just tack something down with the air stapler is key.

    Putting on the inside door panels is tricky.  I ended up putting a very small dot of caulk over the holes drilled by the factory in the door steel, then placing the panel over the door straight and pressing to make a caulk mark on the panel to tell where to drill holes for the screws.  I used an aerosol caulk that Home Depot sells but not Lowes for some reason.  This works mostly ok, especially on the bottom holes and rear holes along the door edge - the rest are easy to mis-mark.  Mark only original sized holes this way and only drill the panel for these - forget any that are drilled larger than factory or are wallowed out.  The rest of the holes you can drill where you want them through both the panel and body steel- suggest a 3/32 drill bit and buy several as they break easily.  When I drilled the holes marked this way in the Moss panel, I found that Moss has holes pre-stamped out in factory positions, but covered them with vinyl - but you cannot find them.  I guess they did not stamp the vinyl too so you can pick your own locations.  Makes sense really.