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Paint Question - seat runners
- Thread starter JPSmit
- Start date
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Whitephrog
Luke Skywalker
Offline
I soaked mine in Evaporust for a little while and they cleaned up nicely.
sparkydave
Jedi Knight
Offline
I wirebrushed my seat rails and painted them, but masked off the sliding surfaces first. Lubed them lightly with some white lithium grease, and they work fine without messing up the carpet.
tosoutherncars
Jedi Knight
Offline
Hmm. Well, if you're sending stuff out to be refinished... I'd suggest putting them in the pile to be galvanized or cadmium-plated.
Trevor Jessie
Yoda
Offline
Mine have to move for my wife to drive the car, and also to clean the carpet.
Back here in Johannesburg
Re-carpeted my midget which required taking out the seats, runners were fine but old just put them back as they were. Never dreamed of lubricating them, wish I had as they are a bit stiff moving back and forth. If you are at that stage re-carpeting take the runners and a dab of grease and just move them together before putting the whole lot back. I happened to write a small article for our MG mag here in South Africa here it is
How to replace carpets in an MG Midget
Some of you may have seen my son and myself at recent MG events, my name is Mark Wilson, my son is Craig and we attend these events in the pale yellow rubber bumper MG Midget. One of the events we attended was show day somewhere north of the Jukskei and of the 4 midgets there only one was entered into the bonnets up judging. So due to my competitive nature I made that 2 entrants, the Midget was bog standard with no fancy polishing whatsoever having been done before the drive. On receiving the score sheets Craig and I were pleasantly surprised that our car wasn’t in too bad a shape and we made the decision that the 2 areas we lost points in (carpets and wheels) were going to be looked in to. I subsequently ordered a new set of carpets via Alan Uzzell and they were delivered in 2 weeks. Next up was booking out the long weekend in September to replace said carpets.
The weekend arrived and the Renault Scenic was parked outside and the Midget reversed from the back of the garage from an east west position to a north south position. What follows is a list of what to do, what not to do and a sort of order to do it.
1. The first thing to do was to reverse the car up on to ramps.
2. Next was to remove the seats. This proved rather tricky as I had no idea where to start. On closer inspection and after trying to removing all 4 bolts per seat from underneath and only succeeding with the front 2 of each seat, I realised that the back 2 bolts had to be removed from inside. This may sound stupid but when I was underneath the car all 4 bolts were covered with rubberising so all looked the same.
3. So lesson number one learnt – first slide the seat forward, move the backrest forward, remove the front 2 bolts from underneath, then remove the back 2 bolts from inside the car.
4. The next step was to remove the carpets and as my garage is rather large I put all the old carpets in the same position they were removed, on the garage floor in front of my car. I then had the pattern of the pieces in front of me.
5. Unpacking the new carpets I was now able to place the carpets in the position they came from by looking at the pattern of the old carpets. This is particularly handy when doing the little carpets behind the seats that go over the wheel arch.
6. Doing the back piece and the wheel arch pieces requires gluing, so a small tin of Gemkem was purchased together with a really cheap paintbrush for application.
7. The rest of the pieces were put in place rather easily.
8. Just a note of caution – The carpets I purchased did not have the press studs on as per the original and the carpet that went over the prop-shaft tunnel had a gap cut out for the handbrake on the right instead of the left. Neither of these points is noticeable when the carpeting was completed.
9. Putting the seats back in is a mission of note, what follows will hopefully help someone if they venture to replace carpets.
10. I put the carpet in first then Craig crawled underneath and put nail polish through the bolt holes to mark where the studs should come through.
11. With these marks I then punched holes through the carpet. I don’t know what is best – to make the holes really big then place them in the seat well and then put the seats on and hope everything matches or what I did. I made small holes, then put the seat bolts through the holes so that the carpet ‘stuck’ to the seat, then I attempted to place the seat, carpet and bolts into the holes. At this juncture Craig started learning a few new French words. This was the most difficult exercise of all.
12. All came right eventually and the interior of my Midget looks a million dollars. The final 2 steps to complete the interior – get some crinkly spray paint for the dashboard and put a clip face radio and cigarette lighter (for the iPod) into the centre console accessory.
13. This all took 2 days with plenty of breaks for juice, backache, sandwiches and French lessons for Craig. Only when I had finished did I realize that I have a manual in the book case with instructions on how to do this.
14. Now to paint the wheels – maybe a week in the December?
Regards
Mark Wilson
Re-carpeted my midget which required taking out the seats, runners were fine but old just put them back as they were. Never dreamed of lubricating them, wish I had as they are a bit stiff moving back and forth. If you are at that stage re-carpeting take the runners and a dab of grease and just move them together before putting the whole lot back. I happened to write a small article for our MG mag here in South Africa here it is
How to replace carpets in an MG Midget
Some of you may have seen my son and myself at recent MG events, my name is Mark Wilson, my son is Craig and we attend these events in the pale yellow rubber bumper MG Midget. One of the events we attended was show day somewhere north of the Jukskei and of the 4 midgets there only one was entered into the bonnets up judging. So due to my competitive nature I made that 2 entrants, the Midget was bog standard with no fancy polishing whatsoever having been done before the drive. On receiving the score sheets Craig and I were pleasantly surprised that our car wasn’t in too bad a shape and we made the decision that the 2 areas we lost points in (carpets and wheels) were going to be looked in to. I subsequently ordered a new set of carpets via Alan Uzzell and they were delivered in 2 weeks. Next up was booking out the long weekend in September to replace said carpets.
The weekend arrived and the Renault Scenic was parked outside and the Midget reversed from the back of the garage from an east west position to a north south position. What follows is a list of what to do, what not to do and a sort of order to do it.
1. The first thing to do was to reverse the car up on to ramps.
2. Next was to remove the seats. This proved rather tricky as I had no idea where to start. On closer inspection and after trying to removing all 4 bolts per seat from underneath and only succeeding with the front 2 of each seat, I realised that the back 2 bolts had to be removed from inside. This may sound stupid but when I was underneath the car all 4 bolts were covered with rubberising so all looked the same.
3. So lesson number one learnt – first slide the seat forward, move the backrest forward, remove the front 2 bolts from underneath, then remove the back 2 bolts from inside the car.
4. The next step was to remove the carpets and as my garage is rather large I put all the old carpets in the same position they were removed, on the garage floor in front of my car. I then had the pattern of the pieces in front of me.
5. Unpacking the new carpets I was now able to place the carpets in the position they came from by looking at the pattern of the old carpets. This is particularly handy when doing the little carpets behind the seats that go over the wheel arch.
6. Doing the back piece and the wheel arch pieces requires gluing, so a small tin of Gemkem was purchased together with a really cheap paintbrush for application.
7. The rest of the pieces were put in place rather easily.
8. Just a note of caution – The carpets I purchased did not have the press studs on as per the original and the carpet that went over the prop-shaft tunnel had a gap cut out for the handbrake on the right instead of the left. Neither of these points is noticeable when the carpeting was completed.
9. Putting the seats back in is a mission of note, what follows will hopefully help someone if they venture to replace carpets.
10. I put the carpet in first then Craig crawled underneath and put nail polish through the bolt holes to mark where the studs should come through.
11. With these marks I then punched holes through the carpet. I don’t know what is best – to make the holes really big then place them in the seat well and then put the seats on and hope everything matches or what I did. I made small holes, then put the seat bolts through the holes so that the carpet ‘stuck’ to the seat, then I attempted to place the seat, carpet and bolts into the holes. At this juncture Craig started learning a few new French words. This was the most difficult exercise of all.
12. All came right eventually and the interior of my Midget looks a million dollars. The final 2 steps to complete the interior – get some crinkly spray paint for the dashboard and put a clip face radio and cigarette lighter (for the iPod) into the centre console accessory.
13. This all took 2 days with plenty of breaks for juice, backache, sandwiches and French lessons for Craig. Only when I had finished did I realize that I have a manual in the book case with instructions on how to do this.
14. Now to paint the wheels – maybe a week in the December?
Regards
Mark Wilson