My first Viva - 1972 Deluxe

[Paul Dawson]

Cheers guys - the boot lid hasn't been done yet - hence photos of front end only!

[logsplitterman]

Lovely job paul, a real credit to you. I will look out for you on the A55
Alan.

[Paul Dawson]

Carpet fitting began (and stopped) this afternoon. Working indoors as it keeps raining.

I am using pins to find the holes in the floor and so far it seems to work.



Then I noticed that I'd left the knife blade open, so for safety's sake I decided to close it - and sliced the end of my finger. I'd really rather not get blood all over the new carpet, so work has come to a halt for the time being.

[jpsmit]

Sorry to hear about the finger, and, good call with stopping!

When you do get back to it, could you document as much as possible - especially pitfalls (excluding of course the aforementioned knife incident

This is a project that is in my future qnd the more advice the better - oh,and did you buy a kit? How does it fit?

[1972nail]

Hi Paul. Woops! I've done the finger thing too! Trimming a GRP panel for my Firenza the knife slipped and I stabbed myself in the thigh. No time to stop with that one as the GRP was setting at a record speed on a scortching hot summer day. My wife, being a nurse, said I needed a couple of stitches .... tough, I need to get the job finished .... stick a plaster on it!



Good idea with the pins. I used jeweller's screwdrivers to find the holes and then some left over 3" decking screws to hold the carpet in position. You can then use the screws to lever the carpet about a bit as well.

[Paul Dawson]

Hmmm - the new carpet makes the seats look grubby. Actually the photo looks worse than they appear to the eye.

I found the carpet easier to fit than I expected. I used a Coverdale set which comes in two sections, front and rear. That way it's pretty easy to fit the rear first and find the holes for the seat belts, handbrake and the plates the seat rests on. Then front part goes in, which is bit trickier. I needed to trim the part around the heater (whilst doing that I found why the heater was pumping out heat even in mid-summer, the clip had fallen off the flap), also need to cut for the steering column.

I didn't remove the gear lever in the end. All I did was take an estimate where the lever was and cut a cross cut to allow the lever to protrude through the carpet to get the rough position. Then I removed the rubber gaiter and cut the carpet into the metal 'ring' around the base of the gear lever. It worked quite well.

It needs to settle a bit, and the cut of the carpet is a bit generous around the transmission tunnel, so it's a bit loose, but I reckon it will settle down after a while.

[jpsmit]

looks really good! well done

[1972nail]

Wow .... Look great Paul

[Paul Dawson]

Thanks chaps.

Funny thing is that I've just noticed that the interior door handles are different. You can see in one of the photos above that the driver's side door card is damaged around the handle, at this stage of refitting bits of trim I discovered that the chrome surround clips onto the passenger handle, but the driver's side is a different fitting entirely and the trim won't clip onto it. The weird thing is that I have two chrome surrounds, I think one of the must have been sourced since I got the car knowing that the driver's side one was missing. But it won't fit.

The card has been cut to allow the different handle to be installed, it's about 1/2 inch further back.

So that's another couple of bits to search for - an original handle and mechanism, and a new door card. (I have a spare one for the passenger side - but I don't need that one!)

[1972nail]

Later Vivas - about 76 on - had different door interior door handlers with as square escutcheon - the chrome trim on the early handle. Your car may have as latest handle fitted.