Carpet Install / Tint Removal / Wheel rust repair (1 Viewer)

[joebattle1]

So of course I thought this was going to be just a quick afternoon job. I of course was wrong... My truck has now been laid up for three weeks while I take care of a bunch of misc repairs.

I got the carpet kit from Reevesci. Couple things to note with his kit. It does not come with backing Jute Padding like some of the others. It also only has one foot pad under the drivers feet not the side pad like OEM or others. The carpet itself is high quality. Really nice.

The 20 plus year old tint needed to be removed. It was showing it's age with chips and scratches and was pretty much purple at this point. I figured now was the time to take care of this while everything was out of the truck. Since this was going to be a messy job I'd rather not do it with new carpet in. The most helpful tool in this procedure was by far the McCuloch MC 1275 Steam Cleaner I got on amazon. This little gem was worth it's weight in gold. I have now used this to clean all kinds of stuff. Get one of these things now! You won't regret it. It makes light work of grease and any other adhesion. I would spring for the more expensive one if I had to do over again. Comes with more and better attachments.

Before

The carpet came out fairly easy but the Jute wanted to "stick" around. It took lots and lots of scrubbing with Simple Green as well as buying a steam cleaner (best tool i've bought in a while) to get all of this out of the truck. Super tedious and messy job.

I got impatient and cut this section out. I don't recommend this as you just might want to use that other piece as a guide later on.

 

[joebattle1]

Some rust under the rear rubber seal.

I discovered these machine screws that appear to be doing nothing but keeping water out. So I got the wire wheel out and the welder and buttoned these up.

 

[NeverGiveUpYota]

Albrights Supply sells the 40oz Jute for $5.50 a yard. I just ordered some the other day to replace mine too. Albright's Supply - Jute Pad 40 oz

 

[joebattle1]

I found some skinny rod laying around so I stuck that into the holes and melted them in there. I was only slightly nervous to be welding right above the fuel fill tube.

 

[NeverGiveUpYota]

Mistakenly I found out that gorilla tape removes tint effortlessly when I replaced my driver side regulator. No big deal cuz it was ugly anyhow. Be grateful, your rust is nothing to mine.

 

[joebattle1]

Albrights Supply sells the 40oz Jute for $5.50 a yard. I just ordered some the other day to replace mine too. Albright's Supply - Jute Pad 40 oz

I actually found this sweet little local upholstery shop (Bay Trim and Upholstery) in East Oakland. It was like 10 bucks a yard. I got 3 yards and some spray adhesive.

 

[joebattle1]

When I ripped the carpet out I found a big nasty mess under the driver pedals. Turns out it was a combination of steering fluid and tranny fluid. I couldn't figure out where the heck it was coming from. Until i dug deeper... Turns out there was an 1/8" hole right under the gas pedal and since the diff cover is under the body there, any fluid that got caught up in there would just swim around that area in make it's way into the cab. So for who knows how long I was getting leaky steering fluid and gear oil all under the rug there. It was gross. You can see the discoloration from years of this. Made my truck smell terrible as well but I could never figure out what it was. So I needed to button that hole up as well and look for any others.

 

[joebattle1]

Annnnd It's all clean and scrubbed.

 

[mr jits]

If you have a hand held clothing steamer tint removal is easy.

 

[joebattle1]

If you have a hand held clothing steamer tint removal is easy.

Yea, I kept meaning to bring one home from my wife's store but that never panned out for a number of reasons... One being "you want to do what with the steamer???... uhhh no!"

Hence why I decided to buy the steam cleaner... Same effect only with a scrub brush attachment. Best of both worlds now. Can't say enough about having one of these things.

 

[joebattle1]

Jumping over to the tint removal. There seams to be 3 schools of thought on tint removal. 1. Heat gun, 2. Steam. 3. Garbage bag with ammonia based cleaning spray. The garbage bag method seams to do better in a warm to hot day and I'm doing all of this in February so not so warm out and definitely not hot. So I try the heat gun method first. Mind you this tint has probably been on the truck for at least 20 years. It is not coming off easy no matter what method I go with. Heat gun works to remove the top layer but not that good and does nothing for the first layer. The steamer on the other hand is amazing. I do in fact have to scrape it all by hand with a Harbor Freight razor knife kit. The steamer makes mostly quick and easy work of the job.

The steam cleaner to the rescue.

After two days of steaming and scraping... No more purple tint.

 

[joebattle1]

On to those rusty wheel wells... I have no clue what I'm doing here so i just belly flop on in there... I drill 3 small guide holes to find my way back when I re assemble and then proceed to drill out all of the rivets...

 

[joebattle1]

Then all hell breaks lose... I can't seam to break the backing plate. Can any one tell me if this bottom section has any rivets? I can't see the backside here as it's under the truck. I tried with a mirror and my iphone but can't get a look behind it. Im struggling to get the plate all the way off.

Does this bottom section have rivets to drill out? Any one have a pic of this plate removed they can share?

Going to need some serious work here. I'll be amazed if I ever get the back seat in right again. lol.

 

[emac]

Great work...I am not far behind doing the carpet removal. Hope I dont find much rust or holes. Did you use the steamer to remove the insulation under the carpet or just for the tint?

 

[joebattle1]

Great work...I am not far behind doing the carpet removal. Hope I dont find much rust or holes. Did you use the steamer to remove the insulation under the carpet or just for the tint?

@emac I did in fact use the steam cleaner to help remove the old jute padding. I scrubbed with Simple Green and a hard bristle brush. Then hit it with the steamer. The steamer basically took a ton of the effort out. I also used my drill and a wire wheel. This also helped a lot. If I had to do to over again I would buy the next version up in price on the steamer. It has more and better replacement nozzles. I would get the McCulloch 1375 instead of the 1275.

 

[NeverGiveUpYota]

Jumping over to the tint removal. There seams to be 3 schools of thought on tint removal. 1. Heat gun, 2. Steam. 3. Garbage bag with ammonia based cleaning spray. The garbage bag method seams to do better in a warm to hot day and I'm doing all of this in February so not so warm out and definitely not hot. So I try the heat gun method first. Mind you this tint has probably been on the truck for at least 20 years. It is not coming off easy no matter what method I go with. Heat gun works to remove the top layer but not that good and does nothing for the first layer. The steamer on the other hand is amazing. I do in fact have to scrape it all by hand with a Harbor Freight razor knife kit. The steamer makes mostly quick and easy work of the job.

View attachment 1651275

The steam cleaner to the rescue.
View attachment 1651276

After two days of steaming and scraping... No more purple tint. View attachment 1651279

Ah interesting to see. Now I understand the other funky layer left behind by the tape pulling the tint off. I just left it since as you pointed out the time of year makes this type of tedious work less fun, its just another thing on my to do list. The clear windows look marvelous.

 

[DickM]

The clear windows look marvelous.

I just removed the tint on my windows. I had good success using the heat gun method (because I had one). Start in a corner after heating the general area of glass, and use a razor blade to get under both "layers" of the film. With care, some fiddling around, and a few well placed expletives, you can get enough tint loose to get hold of it with your fingers. Heat as you peel the film off. Once started ,mine came off (mostly) in one piece. The edges will occasionally tear, or the layers will separate. Use the razor blade to recover the edge, and keep peeling/heating.

The glue residue is then removed with a razor blade (if a heavy layer) and Goof Off. Finish with ammonia content glass cleaner and you are done. It was about 2.5 hours to do it all. The rear window was the worst because of the need to not razor blade the defrost elements.

 

[NeverGiveUpYota]

I just removed the tint on my windows. I had good success using the heat gun method (because I had one). Start in a corner after heating the general area of glass, and use a razor blade to get under both "layers" of the film. With care, some fiddling around, and a few well placed expletives, you can get enough tint loose to get hold of it with your fingers. Heat as you peel the film off. Once started ,mine came off (mostly) in one piece. The edges will occasionally tear, or the layers will separate. Use the razor blade to recover the edge, and keep peeling/heating.

The glue residue is then removed with a razor blade (if a heavy layer) and Goof Off. Finish with ammonia content glass cleaner and you are done. It was about 2.5 hours to do it all. The rear window was the worst because of the need to not razor blade the defrost elements.
View attachment 1651492

I do have a heat gun (and an iron that steams) so I’ll keep all that in mind for when I decide to start the process. Thank you for speaking up!

 

[augirthedude]

I used a razor sharp flexible putty knife to scrape off the tinting with aid of window cleaner. It went fairly quickly. The back glass has the de ice coils ... so the scraping method is out. How did you remove the tint from the back glass / rear hatch window?

 

[Skniper]

Clothing steamer is the way to go. I bought one years ago specifically to remove the tint on my wagon. Works great for clothes too, go figure!

Get a BOTTOM corner of the tinting lifted and let the steamer do the work as you lift the tint off the glass. Mine came off in complete sheets with zero glue residue left.

Can't imagine doing it any other way.