[CousinMB]

The spare wheel cover has a handle, that sits up (Pic 9). I removed that (Pic 10) as I figured it would sit the carpet up a bit, and the cover has a finger hole anyway

 

[CousinMB]

RHS wheel arch next. The old carpet was glued on pretty hard and a lot of the pile was stuck behind (Pic 11) and had to be scraped off. The old piece was used as a template (Pic 12) New piece glued in place (Pic 13) There were a couple of old school zip ties holding the wiring in place which I removed to fit the carpet. One day when I go back in there I'll put the ties back on

 

[CousinMB]

Adjacent to that wheel arch is a recess which is used for the battery in other models. The carpet just sits in there. Fit the new piece (Pic 14) and line the jack door hinges against the carpet and mark for cuts (Pic 15). Then just fit in place and over the hinges. Easy

 

[CousinMB]

Jack cover. What a detailed piece of work this was. Remove the warning symbol (Pic 17), if there is still one there. Carefully prise two of the tabs on the locking washer (Pic 17) with a very small screw driver so it comes off easily. These two tabs get pushed down again for re installation. Remove the latch and pull the old carpet off. Same as the wheel arch, lots of pile stuck that has to be scrapped off (Pic 18). Glue the new carpet on the flat surface only and wait for it to dry (Pic 19), I left this one overnight. Then cut angles in the overhang carpet (Pic 20) so it can bend over and not overlap. Fiddly, but it can be done. Then glue all these pieces over (Pic 21). Cut the holes for the warning symbol and knob/latch and fit. I found the knob would not sit in enough for the latch to attach properly (Pic 22), so had to carefully trim the carpet on the front of the hole (Pic 23) so the knob sat in properly (Pic 24), then the latch fitted as it should (Pic 25). I don't think this carpet was replaced last time someone changed the boot carpet, the glue looked original, so was good to freshen this up as well

 

[CousinMB]

I just made this antenna cover up as I thought it should/could be, so don't take measurements or placement as anything bordering on genuine. As well as others pics, I did Google pics of other 87 300Sls and what I made up seems to be reasonably correct. I used 3mm particle board, but anything else similar should work. I started at the finish with fitting the carpet flat from the tail light, but then it would not fit around the antenna cover and hung way over the bulkhead. After checking other pics I started from the tank bulkhead. This lined the carpet up better around the antenna cover, but it is sort of squished around the tail light. It's not ideal, but it works and it seams to stay there with no glue. My bumper has to come out for body work so this carpet and cover has to be easily removable

 

[CousinMB]

The fuel tank bulkhead. This wasn't going to beat me. I had a plan. It failed. It beat me, so beers. Then plan B formed. I WON!
With no moulding this carpet does not fit around the bulbous end of this bulkhead, so I left that bit til last (Pic 30). I chalked out where to glue the carpet leaving enough 'flap' (Pics 39, 40) to be able to insert/remove all 355 bolts (there were lots of beers) and glued it in three sections (Pic 31), allowing some hours between to grab properly, this is important. First and largest section is fairly straight forward (Pic 32), second needs a little bit of work as the bulkhead starts to curve some (Pic 33), and watch the top of the bulk head, the carpet on mine resulted in being 'gappy' (Pic 37). I should have allowed for the curve some more to sit it up higher. Couple of things I noticed at this point, the bottom right hand corner the carpet curls quite a bit, so I cut it about 2 cms (Pic 36). It gets covered by the floor piece of carpet so all good, and it removes a lot of the tension in the carpet at this point. And at the top of the bulbous bit the carpet required two slits (Pic 34). The first slit opens out so a narrow triangle needs to be made up to close up that gap. The second slit overlaps, so cut that off so the carpet fits over the bulbous end and comes together. Also I noticed the glue applied to the back of the carpet makes it a little bit softer, but only a little bit. This is helpful because the carpet ripples up in the middle where this bulbous area starts (Pic 35). So I folded this bulbous end of the carpet back, plenty of glue, some on the bulkhead and waited for the glue to tack right off. Then bit by bit massaged the carpet on to the glue which removed all the wrinkles, and folded the slits and triangle together (Pic 37). It worked! And better than I expected. I did try heating the bulkhead initially to try and 'mould' the carpet into shape, but I am very familiar with 'is carpet, is carpet, is carpet, is no longer carpet. Shit', so gave up when that wasn't working. It's not perfect, but happy enough. There was also a largish overhang on the lhs (Pic 38) which looks to be for another setup, so I trimmed that off

 

[CousinMB]

Pic 30 from the last post, it wouldn't fit. Also pics of finished boot (TRUNK!) Very happy with how it came out, way better than the mess that was before

 

[Aussiemerc]

Careful what you wish for
Finished installing the boot carpet. Have to say you can install carpet in a full house quicker that redoing this boot. A bit like painting the inside of the whole house. Painting the toilet seems to take the same amount of time. I bought the carpet from GAT, it's good carpet and cut and trimmed well, BUT, no moulds is a serious problem. For something that cost around AU$500 shipped I would expect the carpet to be moulded, over the tank bulkhead, spare wheel and boot lock area. If I had my time again I would source out carpet that is moulded. My work is in carpet so I had some confidence I could pull this off. Not having an antenna cover made for more work, and thanks for @miko1aj and @Aussiemerc for pics that helped me fashion something up that seems to work ok. I couldn't find any real info on installing the boot carpet so I'll briefly document it for anyone looking for info down the track. The glue I used is Sika Premium Contact Adhesive, but any good quality contact adhesive should work well. The Sika is great to work with as it is quite thin and brushes on easily. I used 25mm stupidly cheap brushes, half a dozen, and each one got binned as I worked

View attachment 2647020

Yep, cheaper to chuck the brush than use expensive solvent that never works well with contact anyway.

 

[Aussiemerc]

Pic 30 from the last post, it wouldn't fit. Also pics of finished boot (TRUNK!) Very happy with how it came out, way better than the mess that was before

View attachment 2647085 View attachment 2647084 View attachment 2647083

Good job Cousin.

 

[miko1aj]

Great work Cousin - and thanks for taking the time to provide the extensive write up with pics, I'm sure someone somewhere will appreciate it when faced with a similar challenge! Looks great overall, makes a huge difference. "is carpet, is carpet, is carpet, is no longer carpet. Shit" - BRILLIANT! Happened to me a few times, just replace the word carpet with another noun ;-)

A point regarding the spare wheel cover's plastic handle that you removed - originally, only one tip of it sticks up and you pull it up to attach the plastic cover to the boot lid so that you have easier access to the well. This way it doesn't interfere with the carpet at all - you can see it in one of my pics on the page 1.

 

[CousinMB]

A point regarding the spare wheel cover's plastic handle that you removed - originally, only one tip of it sticks up and you pull it up to attach the plastic cover to the boot lid so that you have easier access to the well. This way it doesn't interfere with the carpet at all - you can see it in one of my pics on the page 1.

I had no idea that's what it is for, thanks Mikolaj It's back where it belongs, although, I do need to get rid of that rear spoiler. It unbalances the boot and hooking the cover up to the boot pulls the boot down

 

[miko1aj]

Good stuff Cousin. Yes, the lid is being pulled down because your 300 doesn't have the heavy duty springs that 500 came with to support the spoiler - not an issue if you're going to get rid of it