Fiat 124 Spider Interior Restoration Part I - Carpet

The interior of the Spider is in average condition for a thirty year old Fiat, yeah that bad. Part of my rolling restoration plan is to re-do the interior from the ground up. Literally, starting with the floors. Unfortunately since this requires taking out the seats, consoles, carpet, insulation, and then scraping, begging-off and chemical-bombarding the rubber liner that has become part of the floor...this will need to be done over the course of a 'free' weekend (not many of those on my calendar).

Then I will POR-15 the floors, replace the wool insulation with foil-lined foam (home ducting type) and of course the carpet.The OEM carpet was a corn-row type that is, amazingly, common stock at home depot and Lowes. Becca and I picked out a lighter color than the car shipped with. We think it will give the car less of a 'old-dark-dirty' look.

Here is the test fitting of the driver side floor carpet.

This weekend I removed most the insulation and rubber from the immediate area, however I will need to strip the interior floorboards using a wire brush and solvent before I can start POR'ing and insulating. Good news is that no rust whatsoever found in the floor panels so far. (shocking)