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It looks like my car was carpeted with Astro-Turf! This is a 2 owner (me being the 2nd) all original 17K mile car. The car spent it's life stored indoors in SoCal. That fact is obvious by the condition of all of the vinyl pieces...like the soft vinyl door panels, the soft and pliable dash pad, NO cracks in the speaker grills, etc... This car is like a time capsule!
It would appear to me that this "transformation" from saddle to green was NOT caused by the sun, but by the dry air and age. I say this because areas that would have never gotten sunlight turned green...like under and behind the seats, way up under the dash, and way back in the cargo area. Now, my case for this being an air vs. sun issue can be illustrated by the areas under the dealer installed rubber floor mats. In addition, the darker areas on the floor of the cargo area were covered by the t-top bags...look closely and you can see the outlines. Same goes for the areas under the rear seat belt retractors, the only saddle color visible in that location is under the the area where the retractors themselves mounted and contacted the carpet, yet the areas under the retractor covers (which never saw sun) turned green as well.
New carpet goes in today. I have to say, this car is an absolute delight to work on...every fastener I have removed came out easily, still looks like new, and not one nut bolt screw or component has a speck of rust on it.
Here's the original carpet as it sits right now...updates to follow:
Hi O,
Quite an interesting situation!
Am I seeing some sort of heat barrier peeking out from under the carpet?
If so, I didn't realize 76 cars had that!
SO many things to look at on a car with such low mileage! I'll bet you're having a really good time with it!
It would be great to see some more pictures of it!
Regards,
Alan
That is strange, I think you are correct that a reaction occured with the air. You can see the areas that had some sort of sealing from the air seem unaffected. Were there floor mats in it?
P.S. That is a sharp color on that '76 you got there
Try dying it first. Nothing to lose here. It looks prestine.
I actually gave that route a tremendous deal of thought and research. Unfortunately, there was no way to dye the carpet and have it look and feel as it did when new. I could not find any success stories on carpet redyeing that ended with the results I would be after. Either the color was off, they dye wouldn't take well, or the carpet had the feel of 80 grit sandpaper.
Hi O,
Quite an interesting situation!
Am I seeing some sort of heat barrier peeking out from under the carpet?
If so, I didn't realize 76 cars had that!
SO many things to look at on a car with such low mileage! I'll bet you're having a really good time with it!
It would be great to see some more pictures of it!
Regards,
Alan
Good eye Alan!
Yes, that is factory installed heat barrier. I was as surprised to see it as you were...I had no idea it was lurking under the carpet.
While the carpet is out I thought I would also take pics if the #2 mounts inside the pillars. Clean as a whistle!
I really am having fun with this car. I need to get it on a lift to document the underside. All of the original suspension paint inspection marks are present, all of the assembly line grease pencil marks are present and legible, and as an added bonus, the painted frame part # and date code are clearly legible too!!!
I will document those items in another thread once I get the car in the air.
Maybe it turned green with envy because your car only has 17k miles.
Originally Posted by bence13_33
That is strange, I think you are correct that a reaction occured with the air. You can see the areas that had some sort of sealing from the air seem unaffected. Were there floor mats in it?
P.S. That is a sharp color on that '76 you got there
Thank you, the car still has the original Orange Flame paint...it's bright in the sun!
Yes, there were floor mats in it. They were the black rubber mats installed by Harry Mann Chevrolet when the original owner purchased the car. I still have them.
I only need to drop the seats in and I'm done. All the flaps for the seat track mounts have been cut (hard to see in the pics but they're there). One thing I improved on is the area around the floor mounter seat belt retractors. The factory simply lopped out a huge section of carpet in the rear outer corners behind the seats at the floor retractor cover, but I decided I didn't want it looking hacked and shoddy again, so I took a little extra time and did some creative trimming to dress that area a little more.
One more note: I was actually able to reuse the storage compartment door frames. None were cracked and I came up with a method of removing them without causing ant damage. Hooray!
The color of 'brown' is created by mixing red and green. I suspect that most brown carpeting is dyed with a brown colored dye. However, I also suspect that taking a green carpet and re-coloring it with some red dye might result in a brown carpet.
I believe that your carpet IS faded from sun (UV) bleaching. And, it appears that the [base] carpet was a green color. If a carpeting vendor had an excess of [non-saleable] green carpet which they could convert to a [saleable] brown color, it is likely that's what would be done [whether GM knew it or not!]. And the 'surface' dye (red) would bleach-out before the (green) base color.
P.S. If you did not find any vendor identification tags attached to the underside of that 'green' carpeting, odds are that the carpeting was an after-market product, rather than original GM issue.
What I removed was original, factory installed, vendor tagged, date coded carpet. Reference post 1, 2nd from the last pic...you will see one of the tags I removed for reference. There were similar tags on each piece I removed.
I would be very interested to know how those UV rays could possibly get in that tight space underneath the seats to turn the carpet green. (???) I just don't see that being the cause...it's just not logical.
Is it the way the picture taken that make the steering wheel look sort of grey, or was it a little different color back then, or has it faded. I wish my 76 looked half as good as yours.
Is it the way the picture taken that make the steering wheel look sort of grey, or was it a little different color back then, or has it faded. I wish my 76 looked half as good as yours.
Note the different appearance of the steering wheel in comment #1 versus comment #15. Cameras often see different colours than we do depending on lighting, angle and so on.
Is it the way the picture taken that make the steering wheel look sort of grey, or was it a little different color back then, or has it faded. I wish my 76 looked half as good as yours.
Thank you for the compliment on the car!
The shot in the first post was taken without a flash and directly under fluorescent lights. Fluorescent lights are the most un-flattering lights out there In post 15 I was using a flash.
My steering wheels is still a vibrant dark saddle, same as the top dash panel. I have included a pic for you to illustrate what it actually looks like. Flash on.
Originally Posted by Priya
Note the different appearance of the steering wheel in comment #1 versus comment #15. Cameras often see different colours than we do depending on lighting, angle and so on.
Exactly, and thank you for noticing the difference in the 2 separate pics...good eye!
12-18-2017, 07:51 AM
17K Mile 1976: OE Saddle Carpet Turned GREEN! See Pics Inside
Exactly, and thank you for noticing the difference in the 2 separate pics...good eye!