Made My Carpet Look New Again!!

[BoostedinSoFla]

So some you may know that I picked up my project 1995 GST for $625 a couple months ago and it has been undergoing some major work since then. I've done quite a few things to it and this has to be one of "those" things I'm very proud of.

Here are some pics of how messed up the carpet was:

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So I took that POS out and went to Home Depot to get some Commercial cleaning chemicals. Simple Green and Zep Carpet Cleaner did the trick. I used the entire thing along with some scrubbing.

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[BoostedinSoFla]

Letting it soak overnight; notice how dirty the water is.

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So after it dried I realized that there still were stains here and there, mainly on the driver side so I went to Advance auto and bought this:

Duplicolor Vinyl and Fabric Paint in Medium Gray, this color matched the interior color the best.

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So after about 3 cans total which was about $6 per can, this is how it came out:

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The interior is not finished as yet but these will be going in tomorrow, then I can take some finished pics for you guys.

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[InfiniteGSX]

Dude, Damn good work! Your carpet looked like mine. I cleaned the hell outa mine and still have a little stain here and there I cant get out.

After the carpet is dry with the Fabric paint, how does it feel? Cause I was thinkin of locating just some fabric dye and soak my carpet to get it the color I want.

I wanna dye my carpet black. Replace my front seats with either some Sparco Torino knockoffs in leather and ad the Star logo to them... and then I wanna reuphoster my rear seats to match.

Very nice work!

 

[BoostedinSoFla]

Dude, Damn good work! Your carpet looked like mine. I cleaned the hell outa mine and still have a little stain here and there I cant get out.

After the carpet is dry with the Fabric paint, how does it feel? Cause I was thinkin of locating just some fabric dye and soak my carpet to get it the color I want.

Very nice work!

Thanks man. I thought it was gonna feel rough after I painted it but it's actually still the same stock texture/feel. If you're gonna change your carpet color completely you'll need more cans.

easier and cheaper way you could have done is take the carpet to a carwash and pressure wash it for like 5-10 mins my seats and carpet looks brand spanking new but you also did a dam good job.

Trust me, even if this thing was pressure washed it wouldn't have been clean enough. Those were some stubborn 12 year old stains. I mean, I only spent what?...almost $30 in total for the entire job.

 

[squeak104]

I did the same with my carpet. I only used two cans to change the color of mine. Looks better than what I had.

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[squeak104]

I scrubbed mine real hard with my finger nails to move it around some to give it a second coat and all seemed well. The only downside to changing colors is getting down into the lower parts of the fibers. If you push from the back side of the carpet, you'll see all kinds of the original color. But then again, how often is the carpet out of it's normal lay?

 

[95CarbonEclipse]

I've been thinking about painting my gray carpet black with that exact same stuff. After seeing how great yours turned out I'm REALLY thinking about doing this... but, I painted the ebay deathtrap seats that came in my car black and have noticed that the paint is wearing away from constant friction with my ass. I doubt that there would be as much wear on my carpet as there would my seat, especially since the carpet has the plastic skid protecter thing underneath the pedals. Here's some pics of the seats I did and a pic (the only one I have) of my carpets right now.

 

[BoostedinSoFla]

I'm not too worried about the color wearing out at all. I'll have my floor mats there plus the skid pad, and the car wont be driven daily along with the fact that I hardly ride with a passenger unless it's the gf of course. I figured that the more coats you use the better it will hold up.

 

[95CarbonEclipse]

Well, not only that... but the fact that you're not changing the color is a huge plus. If I wasn't going from gray to black, I would definitly go this route. As far as my seats go, changing them from yellow to black was strictly a 'band-aid' mod until I can get the cash for new seats all together. And you gotta admit, the painted seats look WAAAAAY better.

 

[BoostedinSoFla]

Well, I got the interior almost completed today..Here are some pics of the carpet installed.

Got the floorboard cleaned up before install.

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Installed Carpet....

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[BoostedinSoFla]

Leather Seats Installed..

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[DSMunknown]

For those of you who don't care to put the work in, or for those of us who have holes in our carpets, click here for a replacement carpet MachV now offers. You even have a few color options to chose from, if you got the cash.

 

[BoostedinSoFla]

I will admit, that carpet looks incredible now......But, I may be concerned with how it react to getting wet. If the paint will run, or smear or whatever. You get the point.

Yeah, I get your point. The paint wont run. Whatever base paint it is, it sticks to the carpet and even now my carpet still looks like that except for little dirt smudges here and there. It got wet before after I spilled some soapy water when I was cleaning my dash and ac ducts. I must say though that I try to take very good care of it by making sure I have floormats and just basically keeping it clean and trying not to step on the actual carpet.

Right where the carpet meets the driver's side door sill there is a little bit of wear but this is normal due to that area being a "high traffic area" I guess. So far so good though.

 

[95CarbonEclipse]

I will admit, that carpet looks incredible now......But, I may be concerned with how it react to getting wet. If the paint will run, or smear or whatever. You get the point.

That Duplicolor Fabric/Vinyl Paint will not "smear, run, or whatever." It works great, especially in a 'spot treatment' application.

Well, I just ordered some new seats to replace the crapbay seats I currently have (the same ones posted earlier in this thread), and yesterday I pulled the carpet out to go ahead with the transformation of 1) cleaning the carpet, and 2) changing the color from gray to black (to match the 2 tone interior paintjob I did late last summer.

Currently my carpet is sitting in a bucket full of soapy water and "Oil Eaters" carpet shampoo. First I pressure washed the entire carpet to knock the "big stuff" out and then I started to let it soak. If I had started this project on Saturday I would've let the carpet soak for the 24 hour period, but since I won't have a chance to work on this again until next Saturday, my carpets will be soaking for almost an entire week.

Once they're dry, I'm going to proceed with the Duplicolor painting process, but will change the color to black.

Just thought I'd make a post to try and bring this thread back up since I know a lot of people are going to be doing they're own special kind of DSM "Spring Cleaning" and this would be a good read right about now. It's so easy and SO cheap to do.

 

[BoostedinSoFla]

If you could get this moved into the how to section that would be great and clean up the write up or get rid of peoples comments.

It's already in the "How To" section, this was just a thread I posted for feedback.

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/art...8985-how-make-your-carpet-look-new-again.html

 

[95CarbonEclipse]

The duplicolor does a very good job at not leaving the fabric hard and crusty (although on my seats, which had a very thin and worn out fabric on them, did feel a bit rougher to me) not to mention I won't be sitting on or touching my carpets anyways. Like BoostedinSoFla said, the only parts of the carpet that see traffic will be covered by my floor mats.

Also, if you're interested in buying new carpet, check MachV as they sell replacement molded carpet for our cars. You may find that ebay is a lot cheaper though.

 

[kronus]

Did you guys remove the 'padding' from the underside of the carpet before cleaning it? I'm debating whether or not to keep it, because I'd like to retain as much sound deadening as possible.

 

[BoostedinSoFla]

I removed it and it was given a proper wash also, then it was re-installed.

 

[95CarbonEclipse]

Yes, I removed it all but the 2 pieces that are next to the center console (those 2 pieces I left on and are soaking with the rest of the carpet). I plan on buying new padding for the area's where you place your feet (mine were soaked in oil).

 

[kronus]

I removed it and it was given a proper wash also, then it was re-installed.

Same technique used to clean the rest of the carpet? And how did you reinstall the padding? And drying method for all of this? Lol, sorry for the questions, I'm just really anxious to do this. =)

 

[95CarbonEclipse]

Same technique used to clean the rest of the carpet? And how did you reinstall the padding? And drying method for all of this? Lol, sorry for the questions, I'm just really anxious to do this. =)

Once you rip your carpet out you'll better understand. The padding basically just sits underneath the areas where peoples feet sit. It's kinda stuck the backside of the carpet, but the only place that really matters is on the sides by the center console. I plan on just using some spray adhesive to re-attach those parts.

I'm not sure if anyone has seen my other thread, buy I'm also going to roll on some truck bed liner on the floor boards while I got the carpet out. I wanna keep as much of the outside noise out of the cabin.

Kronus brings up a good question... what drying method did you use, Boosted? I'm asking because it seems that the carpet soaked up a lot of water while soaking (I emptied the bucket today because I was worried the stagnet water would begin to grow mildew), and I'd like to remove as much excess water before hanging it out to dry.

Did you do anything special when you took it out? I'm thinking that I may want to take it to a laundry mat and throw it into one of those industrial dryers set on a low/air only dry cycle.

 

[kenamond]

Glad this thread caught my eye. I've been wanting to clean the carpet now that my kids are old enough (and fear the wrath of Dad when filthing his car) to not spill OJ anymore. I was afraid the carpet would shrink or lose its form, but it looks like that won't be a problem. I had a mouse set up shop in my car over the winter (he paid dearly) and I found some of the carpet padding in the form of a nest on my VC along with some foam (and a cup of cat food in my vent fan). He didn't take very much, though . Time to rip the carpet out and clean the OJ, mouse poop/pee, and Hanta virus out of there.

 

[BoostedinSoFla]

will this same technique work with our headliner?

I would just replace the headliner material instead. The material itself is very cheap and then just get a can of Spray adhesive. You have a choice of so many different colors/materials. I chose grey microsuede. Pic below.

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[95CarbonEclipse]

Nice! I've had my headliner out since last fall when I needed to do some repair work to the sunroof. I haven't installed it yet because I can't decide whether to stick with gray, or to switch to black. I've got a 2 tone grey/black interior theme going on.

My plan was to go with that same type of microsuade material and do the door inserts with it also.

Here's my old gray carpet painted black along with my new seats installed. The pictures were taken in low light and don't do the over all look and feel of the interior much justice. Also, like an idiot, I didn't take any pictures with my floormats NOT in there. Maybe later this weekend I will. All I can say is that it looks identical to factory black carpet.

Drivers Side

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Passengers Side

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[BoostedinSoFla]

Did you paint under the dash area and the center console side panels black? Your interior looks really clean by the way. I really need to take some updated pics of my carpet so that people can see what it looks like now...