The last couple of weeks haven’t been very productive trying to cope with increasingly limiting pinched nerves in my back and neck. Chiropractic adjustments, massage therapy, pain pills, and anti-inflammatories failed to produce any noticeable improvement.
So I decided this morning it was time for some alternate therapy. With my new floor mat burning a hole in my pocket, I decided a few hours disassembling the interior would provide some vigorous physical activity which would either make things better (or worse) and improve my crappy attitude at the same time.
2 days in a closed bedroom with a space heater set on 80 degrees eliminated virtually all of the packaging wrinkles on the new mat. This is how it looks today without anything underneath to support the shape:
The vinyl material is certainly unlike anything I’ve ever had on the floor of a truck. At 80 degrees it’s as flexible as very fresh piece of licorice. At 72 degrees it’s more like a very stale piece of licorice. At 55 degrees it’s more like a 3/16” sheet of ABS plastic, except it can be bent without breaking.
Out in the truck, the first thing to go was the shifter handle because it was easy to remove sitting in the driver’s seat. My neck won’t bend too well so I wasn’t enthusiastic about getting under the truck to hold on to any fasteners. As it turned out I didn’t have to and everything was removed from above. I just used a pry bar to apply upward pressure on the seat mounting brackets and outer seat belt bolts.
These show the front floor mat, and the older floor mat that was chopped up to fill in between the seats.
And here it is about 3 hours later. The seat brackets, and belts have been removed, but the old eye bolts for the racing belts still remain, because they have to be removed from underneath. The firewall and rear panel upholstery has also been removed. I’m going to try leaving the upholstered kick panels in place and tuck the mat underneath, but they may also have to be removed:
If everything goes well in the morning, I’ll have my wife help pull the eye bolts along with the gas pedal. . A good vacuuming and wipe down should finalize the prep. The mat was delivered with a jute pad, but I haven’t stretched it out yet to see how much it covers.
If my patience holds out, I’d like to lay out the new mat in the cab, set the space heater in place at 80 degrees and leave it for a couple of days until it is perfectly molded to the floor before doing any trimming. We’ll see. I’ve wanted one of these full floor mats for a long time, so I’m enthusiastic to see how it turns out.