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Offline Marshy

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Rubber floor install
« on: May 31, 2015, 04:34:51 pm »
Thanks Cole for the hookup on the pre-cut rubber flooring. A very high quality material and easy to trim for slight variations.

The combination of time and and the heat of south Texas have taken a toll on the backing of the factory floor mat,
causing it to disintegrate into the carpet, making the carpet sticky and unclean-able.
This and the constant mess being made by kids necessitated a need for change.
So all seats and brackets for the rear shelf, along with the trim for the side door step trim, and the rear heater vent need to be removed first. The step trim just pulls straight up. Much more simple that I thought.
I started with a regular scraper and quickly realized I would grow old and gray and put my kids through college before I finished getting the carpet up.
So I found a garden tool and put an edge on it with a bench grinder. This was quite a labor intensive project. A power scraper or industrial floor scraper with replaceable blades would probably work better. My carpet may have been worse than others due to the disentigrated floor mat backing, but it took me about 2.5 hours to get all the carpet up.



 After finishing the carpet removal I test fitted the new floor and trimmed it up to fit just right.

I used a contact cement to glue it down. I put the floor in place, rolled back one half and glued it, then rolled back the other half and glued it. This helped keep it in the right place.

The holes for the rear facing seats weren't precut but some quick work with a razor knife fixed that.



Reinstalled the seats step trim and it's ready to go!
« Last Edit: May 31, 2015, 04:41:33 pm by Marshy »

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Offline filmshoot

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Re: Rubber floor install
« Reply #1 on: June 01, 2015, 05:17:47 am »
Subscribed!  I just bought this same flooring product...

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Offline albertr

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Re: Rubber floor install
« Reply #2 on: June 01, 2015, 06:38:52 am »
Looks great!

-albertr

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Offline Cole

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Re: Rubber floor install
« Reply #3 on: June 01, 2015, 08:53:34 am »
WOW! Looks AWESOME in the white van. Looks like a major improvement over the abuse your carpet has been taking. Should say much cleaner looking in there.


Glad to see a write up on it by someone other than me.  :)


Some of the carpet has been a major chore to get off, others have peeled right off with almost zero effort. If anyone comes up with a great way to loosen the glue I'm all ears.
Cole

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Offline Marshy

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Re: Rubber floor install
« Reply #4 on: June 01, 2015, 09:19:00 am »
Some of the carpet has been a major chore to get off, others have peeled right off with almost zero effort. If anyone comes up with a great way to loosen the glue I'm all ears.
It was a real chore to get that carpet up. At first i thought if i could get an edge up, then I could peel the rest. Wrong. The carpet backing just pulled through the fibers, giving me an perforated piece of plastic, and leaving the fuzz stuck to the plywood.
I thought about using some sort of paint thinner, but worried that it may make more of a mess than help the process. Products with acetone could dissolve the glue, but also the carpet and the adhesive that holds the plywood deck together. For me the best solution was lots of elbow grease, mixed with time, music and beer. I took up a strip the width of the scraper from the door to the table, then made my way either side of the bare strip about 3" per pass. Each impact of the scraper peeled back maybe 1/4" of carpet. The area under the seat to the rear was much easier to scrape up. Which makes me think the disintegrated floor mat, and maybe foot traffic, may have helped to adhere the carpet down better.

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Offline Cole

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Re: Rubber floor install
« Reply #5 on: June 01, 2015, 09:32:30 am »
I've done a bunch of these now and can't seem to figure out what makes some peel right off and others fight you to the death.

I use a power scraper with a thin sharp blade and it still takes a few hours. A 5' sanding disk on a grinder works wonders for getting all the left over carpet fibers off ;)

I just stripped down a 1993 that I'm building and it put up a big fight. But the old carpet was just nasty after 22 years of use. I vacuumed it several times during the process and it still shook out PILES of dirt as I was removing it.

Cole

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Offline Marshy

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Re: Rubber floor install
« Reply #6 on: June 01, 2015, 09:45:10 am »
Now that's interesting. In that picture, it looks like that van has actual plywood instead of OSB that is in mine.

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Offline Itsamoto

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Re: Rubber floor install
« Reply #7 on: June 02, 2015, 03:59:02 pm »
Wow - huge improvement Marshy. Great results.

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Offline VAG_Tech

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Re: Rubber floor install
« Reply #8 on: July 13, 2015, 06:29:45 pm »
Fantastic! Great idea. Such a clean look and the best part about that is it's so easy to clean!!
If I'm not camping, I'm not happy.
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Offline finboy

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Re: Rubber floor install
« Reply #9 on: September 14, 2015, 02:16:43 pm »
Anyone have shots of the underside of the wood? Looks like it has a lot of contours that need to be in place to make sure it goes down against the floor, and doesn't interrupt the trim.


« Last Edit: September 14, 2015, 03:24:12 pm by Cole »

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Offline Cole

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Re: Rubber floor install
« Reply #10 on: September 14, 2015, 03:24:22 pm »
I've had the wood floor out. There is a little extra wood around the heater vent, and I can't remember what else.

I've made wood floors from 1/4" ply without the extra shaping and it also works really well.
Cole

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Offline Itsamoto

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Re: Rubber floor install
« Reply #11 on: January 30, 2016, 11:10:21 am »
Cole -- this may be of interest to you...

I found this looking for DIY rubber flooring for my own van -- its called G-floor and great thing is that it comes in a 7.5' wide roll (making it large enough to do the floor in one piece). Multiple color and texture options as well.

https://www.bltllc.com/g-floor-vinyl-flooring/solid-color

Cheapest price seems to be ordering it online through Home Depot (for local store delivery). For example, this 7.5x17' sheet is large enough to do 2 vans for $157 material cost. Pretty good. http://www.homedepot.com/p/G-Floor-7-5-ft-x-17-ft-Rib-Standard-Grade-Midnight-Black-Garage-Floor-Cover-and-Protector-GF55RB717MB/203450698?MERCH=RV-_-rv_search_plp_rr-_-NA-_-203450698-_-N

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Offline Cole

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Re: Rubber floor install
« Reply #12 on: January 30, 2016, 12:07:25 pm »
That's essentially the same stuff.

If you wanted to do G-floor is a distributor. Looks like the price has come down a little recently.

An industrious DIYer could do it this route for sure and have some left over.

The rear trick is making the pattern ;) Took many many hours to be able to cut my first one as an exact duplicate to the factory carpet. Which, if you read some of the threads around here you will see that it doesn't come off as one easy piece.  ;)
Cole

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Offline dipilato

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Re: Rubber floor install
« Reply #13 on: March 13, 2016, 11:57:23 am »
WOW! Looks AWESOME in the white van. Looks like a major improvement over the abuse your carpet has been taking. Should say much cleaner looking in there.


Glad to see a write up on it by someone other than me.  :)


Some of the carpet has been a major chore to get off, others have peeled right off with almost zero effort. If anyone comes up with a great way to loosen the glue I'm all ears.

Ok, so mine was a huge Pita for sure!  Tried scraper, putty knife, razor scraper, pole scraper....you get the idea.  Finally ended up borrowing a multitool from a friend with this http://goo.gl/Qm9p2u attachment (top right corner).  So wet the carpet and let it soak for a bit.  Get it under an edge and as you peel it back, let the tool do the work.  Helped speed up the process a great deal for sure!

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Offline mastersryan!

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Re: Rubber floor install
« Reply #14 on: October 14, 2016, 03:03:53 pm »
Great outcome and improvement on the flooring. How is it holding up now? I am about to put in my cavevan flooring this weekend if I have the time. I am hoping my 93's carpet comes up easy but from what I have been reading it doesn't look good.
1993 VW Eurovan MV Weekender 2.5L 5spd