goodbye carpet, hello rock guard

[dlb]

my wife's truck has had a leak that pools in the passenger side foot well for a long time. it's been raining a lot lately and the truck was really stinking so i pulled the carpet back and took a look. i could see where the leak comes in and it appears to run down from a lower portion of the windshield. there is nothing else wrong with the windshield so it wouldn't be worth replacing it, and since the truck is used for dump runs, moving hay, etc, we decided it made more sense to rip the carpet out, drill a drain hole in the floor, and rock guard the damn thing. so i did.

where the leak ran down and pooled.



seats removed.



carpet removed.



looks like my wife spilled a bunch of coolant, which she usually stores behind her seat. she also dropped her bullets, apparently.



glad i didn't suck these up with the vacuum!



vacuumed, wiped, vacuumed, wiped. that was my paint prep. this is my super pro masking job.





rock guard in.



gave it a day to dry and put everything back in.







i've been checking the drain and it works like a charm. i'm sure that it will slowly rust over time, but no quicker than the rest of the truck is rusting. this was a much cheaper ($12) and much more efficient solution for us. funny thing is that i thought of doing this to my first T4. never did but i would definitely consider it for a future project if the carpet was hooped or a similar leak situation. the only thing i would mention to anyone else thinking of doing this is that the spray can of rock guard says it takes 4-6 hrs to dry but that's BS. it was still tacky a day afterward.

[splatterdog]

The only problem is that the heater probably won't keep up anymore. I bought a $50 winter beater dodge colt that had carpet removed only because he liked to leave the windows open. I made sure the heater was as good as it could be, blocked 100% of the rad with cardboard. Still had to dress for icefishing...

[dlb]

that's interesting, i didn't realize that the carpet insulated the cab so much. should still be fine though since it doesn't get too cold here in the winter. worst we get is a few weeks of -5 to 0 C, and i bought my wife a cheap seat heater pad last year which she loves to warm her ass up in the winter.

[simon84]

So the truck was just used for moving hay, dump runs and the odd drive-by maybe by the looks of it. I guess now the spare ammo will rattle around more so it won't get forgotten under the seat so easily.

Nice work!
It looks a little shiny for you though David. Does it not come in flat black?

[emmahumpfritter]

Your constant little projects to stay busy and productive inspire me D! Thanks

[splatterdog]

edited for stupity..

[dlb]

Your constant little projects to stay busy and productive inspire me D! Thanks

haha, thanks brenton. i only wish my projects were to keep busy. problem is more just always seem to pop up, like this one did. at least this was a quick and easy one. i also just did both CVs on my all-trac which was another quick and easy job. once i'm done the current project tercel, i'm going to take a break from rescuing any more cars for a while so i can finally finish my wife's horse trailer, catch up on the new camper van, and do some work on the house...THEN it will be open season on tercels again!

It looks a little shiny for you though David. Does it not come in flat black?

unfortunately not! you know i would have gone flat if i could. there were three types at canadian tire and all appeared glossy. i only went with the mid-priced one because the cheapest one didn't say "rubberized" and i wanted it to be more durable. who knows if this one is actually any better though.

[MR2Di4]

The rock guard is definitely an improvement!

One thing you'll probably wind up doing is putting in some kind of rubber mat in the footwells simply because having your feet slide around getting in or out isn't fun. I may do a similar project to my T4WD but I would go with roll-on truck bedliner because it has a nice matte finish and has a grippy rubberized texture. You could also go with some sound deadening material underneath the seats and maybe around the transmission tunnel for some degree of insulation if that becomes an issue.

MR2Di4