November 2004

Today I will remove the carpet, parking brake and seat rails. The objective is to prepare the interior of the car for removal of the sound deading. This is the first of the reference shots, passenger side.

The driver's reference shot. The seats and backpad have already been removed.

This is the reference shot of the driver's footwell.

The reference shot of the passenger's footwell. The blue coated wires will be removed, they are the wires installed for the under-dash A/C unit. The red wires will also be removed, they were for the after-market radio.

This is another reference shot of the wiring underneath the passenger's seat. This is for the seat belt override system. If there is a passenger in the car, they must buckle their seat belt, otherwise, the car wont start.

This is the other reference shot.

I began the carpet removal by removing the seat belt bolts, 17mm, then the vinyl sheets over the center tunnel and the center brace.

Next, remove the 6 screws that hold the plastic threshold piece. Then remove the piece.

Next, remove the 4 screws that hold the speaker, then remove the speaker.

This will reveal the heater hose. Begin by loosening the clamp.

Then, open the front trunk and loosen the clamp. Remove the hose from the metal brace, then return to the passenger compartment and remove the hose from that brace. Finally, carefully pull the hose into the passenger compartment.

Next, remove the (2) 10mm bolts, on each side of the seat rail, at the rear. Next remove the (2) 13mm bolts at the front of the seat rail. Remove the seat rail. This shows how the adjustment piece fits to the seat rail. The 2 bolts, in this shot, are the front bolts that were removed earlier.

Another shot of the adjuster. You'll notice that the original grease, from the dealer/factory, is still present. This grease will need to be added prior to installation.

Next was the removal of the parking brake handle.

This shows the location of the parking brake indicator.

It is removed by unscrewing the sheetmetal screw and carefully removing it from the square hole, along with the brown/yellow wire.

Remove the indicator from the wire, then feed the wire back through the holes. Reattach the indicator to the wire so you don't loose it.

Finally you can remove the parking brake handle. Remove the metal cover over the cable. Next, remove each rear brake cable from the swing arm. Remove the spring from the swing arm. Next, remove the circlip on the back side of the swing arm and pull the pin out. This will allow you to detach the swing arm from the cable. Finally, unbolt and remove the parking brake handle. This shows the parking brake handle and it's attached cable, holding the swing arm.

Here's a close up of the swing arm and cable.

Another close up of the swing arm and the circlip. The hole you see is where the spring is attached.

Next, remove the accelerator pedal. The cable attached at the back has a cup that you just pop off, remove 2 bolts in the floor. Next, remove the pedal board, there are 2 bolts. Finally, remove the brake/clutch section by removing the 2 bolts in the floor.

Finally, you can remove all of the carpet. The carpet is glued in place. There are 2 access panels, to the center tunnel, one at the front and the other at the rear, that I also removed.

This is another shot from the passenger's side.

This is the before shot of the area under the passenger's seat.

This is the passenger's footwell.

Driver's side under the seat.

Pedal and driver's footwell.

Close up of the pedal area and underneath the dash.

This is a shot after removing the tar using the air-hammer and chisel. The tar was removed in sections, as shown on the following shots and on certain areas of the center tunnel.

After shot of area underneath passenger's seat.

Passenger's footwell area.

Area underneath driver's seat.

Pedal and driver's footwell.

After the tar was removed, I used an angle-grinder, with a heavy-duty wire brush, and several screwdrivers to remove the residual tar and any seam-sealer.

After removing the majority of the residual tar and seam-sealer, I used paint thinner to clean the rest. Finally, I used Ospho to protect the metal until I can paint it. You'll also notice that I covered the dash to keep the 'strings', caused by the angle-grinder removing the seam-sealer, from getting in, on or under the dash.

This is the before shot. I had already removed the seam-sealer and the floor paint.

This is the after shot. I removed all of the paint on the sides and underneath the overhang.

This is a shot of the front passenger side.

This is a shot of the front driver side.

This is a shot of the rear driver side.

This is a shot of the rear passenger side.