Here’s a good question. Out in the dry heat of west Texas we don’t worry too much about humidity destroying our interiors. Does anyone know how the cardboard we used to construct the headliner base will hold up in a wetter climate? E-mail me.

            Carpet first, then console? Or is it the other way around? Actually it is both. I need to install some of the carpet before the console can be mounted, but because the console will be built in place I’d rather not have all of the carpet installed. Building the console in place means a lot of crawling in and out of the car, a lot of wood splinters from the construction and errant drops of glue hitting here and there inside the car as I cover the console with the dark gray vinyl. This is no environment for pristine carpet.

As you move through the next few photographs notice that the side trim panels are not in the car. Leaving them out will let me extend the floor pan carpet past the bottom edges of the panels and that insures that once the trim panels are installed the carpet will be tucked neatly beneath the trim panels with no gaps or exposed areas of the floor pan showing.

 The rebond padding is glued into place. I’m still using Eastwood # 520001zp

adhesive to get everything stuck into place. Notice that I didn’t pad the drive shaft tunnel. No need for padding here as the console will cover the bulk of the tunnel. Also notice that I left an inch of space between the rebond and the edges where the carpet will tuck under the side trim panels as well as along the sides of the drive shaft tunnel and around the seat mounting brackets.

This reduces the amount of material build up that has to be forced beneath the side trim panels once they are installed. It also allows me to carpet the drive shaft tunnel and glue that carpet directly to the floor pan.  That, in turn, allows the floor pan carpet, once it is installed, to overlap this selvage edge for a clean look.

Console Construction.

            The plan calls for a console that extends the full length of the cab. It will start just underneath the center of the dash and work its way to the rear of the cab where it will transition into a center arm rest for the rear seat passengers.

The console will also serve as a conduit for the wiring that leads to the rear of the car and for that reason will become a permanent fixture inside the car. Once completed the console will give the illusion of being two separate pieces, a front section and a rear section. That’s because the rear section will only be half as wide as the front section.

            As mentioned above the rear section will basically be an elongated arm rest. I’ll add a couple of cup holders for passenger convenience as well as a power outlet to plug in those digital gismos kids can’t seem to do without these days.