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Offline Cole

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Replacing the carpet with vinyl (or other) flooring.
« on: May 29, 2015, 03:39:49 pm »
I've removed and replaced a bunch of Eurovan floors now. This thread will be part information bout the flooring found in these van and partly how to install new stuff.


The first thing you need to know is at the stock flooring is not all the same. The GL/GLS passenger vans have foam and rubber backed carpet. This is very soft to kneel on and great for a passenger van.  The vans with the rear bed from Westfalia, the MV and Weekender, hve a thin layer of carpet stuck to a wood subfloor. This is to provide a hard surface for the bed to roll on.

Installing a rear bed into a GL/GLS without changing the flooring makes for a very difficult to operate bed as it just sinks into the soft foam carpet.


It's possible to replace the stock GL/GLS carpet with a wood floor but I'll get into that later.

Not the best picture, but this is MV flooring without its top layer on it in front and GLS  pure carpet in back.



The stock carpet in the MV/Weekender seems to soak up and store dirt, mildew, mold, etc. it lets liquids pass right through it into the wood subfloor.  When you pull the stock carpet up you may be amazed at what stains are in the subfloor!

The stock wood subfloor is glued into the van and nearly impossible to remove. So it's best to leave it in place and work with it there.

Remove all the seats, seat brackets, bed brackets, and door trim from the rear hatch and slider. The slider door trim just pulls straight up. No need to remove the interior trim pieces. The carpet is just tucked under them.


The carpet is glued down. Sometimes it will just pull up, other times you need to scrape, chisel, pull, and sand it off. Start at the slider door and start pulling. It may come off in chunks.


I go over the floor with a sander to get it totally free of glue and old carpet bits before installing a new floor.




This is a vinyl plank wood look over the wood subfloor. Its much heavier than you might think. It scratches and looks dirty constantly being a dark color. It should also be noted that to do this you need to make a custom carpet trim piece for the doorway. This piece get a lot of traffic and is hard to make last a long time.



I put my flooring through a lot of testing!!




After testing out a bunch of stuff I don't have pictures of I came up with the solution below. This is the stuff I have for sale on the main portion of this site. It's a flexible poly-vinyl flooring. It can be laid down in two large sections just like the stock carpet. Which makes if far more water and gunk proof than the plank or tile floors. It also curves to match the slider entry way and rear door trim. It's durable and looks clean even when its not.



It also matches the existing grey interior color for a factory look.



Different van, Just also happens to ve techno blue.



« Last Edit: May 29, 2015, 09:19:33 pm by Cole »
Cole

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Offline 42pvan

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Re: Replacing the carpet with vinyl (or other) flooring.
« Reply #1 on: May 30, 2015, 09:32:26 am »
Just to add some EVC information. The stock floor on my 99 EVC is a thin sheet of textured vinyl glued over a OSB subfloor. I have no idea why Winnebago choose this floor, maybe for traction? The texture is big big to really dig into knees when you are working on it and small enough to prevent any good cleaning.  Just another reason why I am unhappy with the Winnebago conversion. I really like the flooring you have come with. I used a similar product when building a recreation room in my basement and found it a good mix of comfort, clean ability, hardness, and looks. The problem on an EVC is the to do a good job requires removing all the cabinetry and the rear seat bracket, which is why I am putting this project off for bit!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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Offline xeres

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Re: Replacing the carpet with vinyl (or other) flooring.
« Reply #2 on: July 05, 2015, 02:48:56 am »
First -- thank you for this site. As posted elsewhere, it's wonderful to see a site specifically for Eurovans.

It's possible to replace the stock GL/GLS carpet with a wood floor but I'll get into that later.

We recently acquired a 2002 EV GLS that needs some TLC and modifications to make it even better. Right now my better half is mulling over installing the bed/seat from a 1993 Weekender, no actual work done yet. I am more than curious to know how to do add the wood sub-floor. Do you have any advice from experience (or even a thought experiment!)




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Offline Cole

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Re: Replacing the carpet with vinyl (or other) flooring.
« Reply #3 on: July 05, 2015, 07:43:44 am »

First -- thank you for this site. As posted elsewhere, it's wonderful to see a site specifically for Eurovans.

It's possible to replace the stock GL/GLS carpet with a wood floor but I'll get into that later.

We recently acquired a 2002 EV GLS that needs some TLC and modifications to make it even better. Right now my better half is mulling over installing the bed/seat from a 1993 Weekender, no actual work done yet. I am more than curious to know how to do add the wood sub-floor. Do you have any advice from experience (or even a thought experiment!)

Thanks.

This picture is from a GLS to Weekender that I made the wood subfloor for. Thought I had some in construction pictures but I can't find them.

The floor is just 1/4" plywood. You could probably do 1/2" too.

You will need 2 4x8' sheets of it.

You could probably do it two ways.

First, you could install the rear bed. It will require trimming your current carpet for the new bed mount locations.

Then remove the carpet to use as a templet for the wood floor. Only using the new holes and not the ones you don't need.

The carpet is glued down with a nasty black tar substance that you really do not want on anything. So you will want to put some trash bags on the back of carpet as soon as you take it off. The black stuff will ruin about anything it touches.

The second option is to order some of my vinyl flooring and use it as the templet. It will be cut for the bed mounts already. 


Do you have the rear bed assembly? Table assembly? I've got a full set of both.


Cole

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Offline xeres

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Re: Replacing the carpet with vinyl (or other) flooring.
« Reply #4 on: July 11, 2015, 11:38:16 pm »

You could probably do it two ways.
>snip>
The second option is to order some of my vinyl flooring and use it as the templet. It will be cut for the bed mounts already. 
Do you have the rear bed assembly? Table assembly? I've got a full set of both.

I'm all about *not* reinventing the wheel but before I order your flooring (I've been drooling over your posts on multiple forums!) I have to have the  van checked out by my VW/TDi-guru (I have a 2006 Beetle TDI) before we sink serious cash into the van. I don't want to call it an impulse buy as we wanted a EV of this vintage but he found this salvage title from Craigslist while I was attending a meeting out of town.  :o 

The other issue with the van -- it must be the only tan interior on the planet. 

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Offline xeres

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Re: Replacing the carpet with vinyl (or other) flooring.
« Reply #5 on: August 11, 2015, 12:28:20 am »

The second option is to order some of my vinyl flooring and use it as the templet. It will be cut for the bed mounts already. 

Do you have the rear bed assembly? Table assembly? I've got a full set of both.

We have no parts yet. I am going to order the vinyl flooring in the near future (one short road trip with carpet was enough to convince him).

Looking at your Blue 1.0/2.0, my husband  commented on the painted rails – he said this is not how the 93 bed is attached. Is this to accommodate the GLS interior body rather than a Weekender/Camper? By any chance would your parts happen to be match the tan interior? ;-) I'm thinking of calling the van Rocky as it's a bit of a Franken-van (tan interior with a grey driver door).

Sorry for the newbie questions – this is the first project car/van for me (and him). We are mechanically inclined folks (engineer & science teacher) but we leave the engine/mechanicals to the pros.

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Offline Cole

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Re: Replacing the carpet with vinyl (or other) flooring.
« Reply #6 on: August 11, 2015, 12:38:26 am »
We have no parts yet. I am going to order the vinyl flooring in the near future (one short road trip with carpet was enough to convince him).

Looking at your Blue 1.0/2.0, my husband  commented on the painted rails – he said this is not how the 93 bed is attached. Is this to accommodate the GLS interior body rather than a Weekender/Camper? By any chance would your parts happen to be match the tan interior? ;-) I'm thinking of calling the van Rocky as it's a bit of a Franken-van (tan interior with a grey driver door).

Sorry for the newbie questions – this is the first project car/van for me (and him). We are mechanically inclined folks (engineer & science teacher) but we leave the engine/mechanicals to the pros.

 I think you are talking about the difference between rear bed supports?

The 1993s had cabinets in the back that supported the rear portion of the bed. 1999-2003 had the steel post style supports.

Here is a 1993 van. These are easier to use in a conversion than the steel supports.



New style.

Cole

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Offline xeres

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Re: Replacing the carpet with vinyl (or other) flooring.
« Reply #7 on: August 11, 2015, 11:45:29 am »
Thanks for those pictures -- that will help a lot!

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Offline xeres

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Re: Replacing the carpet with vinyl (or other) flooring.
« Reply #8 on: November 18, 2015, 10:58:06 pm »
Cole (and others who have done this)

Do you use an adhesive between the flooring and the plywood? If so, any recommendations? After the fire delay, we finally have some time to do van work. <yay!>




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Offline Cole

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Re: Replacing the carpet with vinyl (or other) flooring.
« Reply #9 on: November 19, 2015, 06:37:15 am »
I've use a vinyl baseboard wall trim adhesive. I'll see if I can stumble on the container today and post a picture of it. We just moved so all that stuff is kind of lost in the packing.
Cole

Re: Replacing the carpet with vinyl (or other) flooring.
« Reply #10 on: November 19, 2015, 08:47:59 am »
I have used PL Construction Adhesive with great success on two different Vanagons where I replaced the carpet with the VW stock rubber flooring and vinyl pedestals.  I was recommended this product by a shop owner out of New York who also used it on all his vans.
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/album_search.php?search_keywords=VW+rubber+mats+and+pedestals&search_author=wildenbeast&show_results=summary

Bill
Bill
1993 Syncro Weekender (5 speed Manual)

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Offline xeres

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Re: Replacing the carpet with vinyl (or other) flooring.
« Reply #11 on: November 19, 2015, 05:19:59 pm »
Thanks for the adhesive recommendations.

Of course, there is one more thing. Using the mat as a template, no problem. The new question.... does the geometry of the plywood pieces under the mat make a difference?

I see cutting from 2 pieces, using 8' as width, with left over wood cut away. He sees 1 piece running front to back and use smaller pieces <which we have> to fill in the spaces where it is wider than 4'. Obviously, I'm for fewer pieces under the vinyl and he's going for economy of materials.

<edit> Measured several times, cut once -- in two pieces (much easier than the jig-saw puzzle method)

« Last Edit: November 22, 2015, 08:20:50 pm by xeres »

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Offline emarg0ed

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Re: Replacing the carpet with vinyl (or other) flooring.
« Reply #12 on: February 26, 2016, 02:17:15 pm »
Cole, on the floor product page it says your vinyl flooring works in 99-03 vans, but in this thread there is a picture of a 93. Does the floor fit a 93 as well, and are there any modifications needed to make it work w/ a 93 MV Weekender?

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Offline Cole

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Re: Replacing the carpet with vinyl (or other) flooring.
« Reply #13 on: February 26, 2016, 04:15:40 pm »
There is now a version for the 93.

The door opening and rear of the 93 is different.

Cole

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Offline emarg0ed

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Re: Replacing the carpet with vinyl (or other) flooring.
« Reply #14 on: February 27, 2016, 12:13:09 pm »
Good to know, thanks! That is my next major upgrade :)