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TR4 Carpeting - The review

To: triumphs@autox.team.net
Subject: TR4 Carpeting - The review
From: "Brad Kahler" <brad.kahler@141.com>
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 12:10:06 -0600
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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