Junk in the Trunk: The Finale

I picked up the carpet pieces that I had dropped off at Gresham Lake Upholstery the other day. I had them sew vinyl around the edges, and it looks great. (That service cost $65, which puts the entire trunk carpet project well under the $250 that a pre-made kit would cost.)



I think this is one project that worked out pretty well. At the car show next Saturday I will leave the trunk open so people can check it out... :-)

If I were doing it again, I'd use the fuel filler tube to lay the Eucaboard up against a little more, and have a single long piece of carpet for the back panel. That might look a littlle cleaner, but the way I have it, I can get into either side of the back panel without disturbing the other side.



(BTW, there's glare on the carpet from the flash.)

Junk in the Trunk: Part III

I finally got around to trying my hand at putting in a trunk carpet. I saw Mustangs Unlimited offered a Ford Blue trunk carpet kit, but when the carpet arrived it was Medium Blue, which was labeled on the box. I called Distinctive Industries, who makes most of these kits, and they sent me the samples at left for all the blue carpet they offer. Ford Blue is the carpet behind the small samples, and none matched well.

I test fitted one or two pieces of the trunk kit -- before sending the kit back -- and clearly the larger 22 gallon fuel tank and rear seat divider in metal that I had installed would cause a pre-made kit to not fit well, even if I found the right color. So I made my own trunk carpet kit.



I bought a large roll (3.5 yards) of Ford Blue carpet from ACC for about $120, and a $12 sheet of Eucaboard (made from water-resitant eucalyptus). I had a $10 can of good spray glue. (The pre-made kit is $250 shipped.) Fortunately I had some large cardboard sheets on hand from a recent furniture purchase for cutting out some templates for test fitting. The pic at left looks like a bunch of scrap, but it is many of the pieces I had cut out for installation into the trunk.



Here's a photo showing the Eucaboard underneath. I went around some of the edges with some spare Dynamat Extreme to keep it in place and quiet it down. The hole is for the spare wheel, which I currently am not carrying.



Some of the carpet pieces are currently at the local upholstery place having the edges bound in blue vinyl for $65... In the photo not everything is glued down, and the edges are rough. (Here's a Before photo of the trunk.)

Junk in the Trunk: Part II

Here's a quick shot of the trunk where I installed a larger 22-gallon fuel tank (with new sender) that I had painted silver and then clearcoated from a rattle can. I undercoated the new trunk metal with a 3M product and will be covering the whole enchilada with Ford Blue carpet. More on that later...

Junk in the Trunk

Unfortunately the only junk in the trunk was rust, but not too much at all... This meant replacing three of the trunk floor panels -- two drop-offs, and the rearmost connecting piece between them. We elected to replace the tail light panel too (and that means the two brackets holding it to the floor, and the filler neck pass through to make it easier). The cost of all these panels, including the improved repros and one Ford tooling panel was a few hundred dollars. Some people would patch (or cover) these rusty areas, but we figured it best to replace them...





The rust did not affect the rear frame rails at all, and was primarily localized to the ledge on which the gas tank sits. It was caused by water in the trunk, partially from a rear tail light bezel with a missing gasket. And also using the wrong gasket around the trunk ledge that holds the gas tank (the gasket held water between the ledge and the tank.) This area is one of a few that commonly rust on these cars.

I upgraded to a 22 gallon tank for a 1970 model (which I painted silver with a can of ceramic paint and a can of clear) from the original 16 gallon design. I also used a new sending unit, larger 3/8" stainless fuel line with rubber line, filter, and fuel pump fitting.