Dear all, I've got some rust in the drivers side foot well. How can I remove the carpet from just this side so I can weld in a piece.

You have to remove the door rubber strip then the screwed down plate at the edge. Then pop out any necessary plastic buttons. You will probably have various layers of sound proofing and cushioning, the cushion+rubbery pad should lift out, but there will be a layer of hard bitumen type stuff you may need to remove from the area.

It's the centre console and that's concerning me

still relatively easy:

remove the following (in order of removal):
floormats (obvious but thought i should mention it )
both seats
rear bench helps aswell
the stuff Tony mentioned above ^
seatbelt lockers (or whatever you call those over the big puddle)
seatbelt sliders on the doorside
2 pieces of plastic on each side
2 black panels under each side of the dash
2 panels wich are stuck against the centre console thingy under the dash; they just pull out
centre console around the gearselector / lengthened centre console near the handbrake if it's there.
2 plastic pipes to heat the foot of the rear passengers (just pulls out) if they are there
above the normal open-gloveboxthingy in front of the gear selector; the 2 bolts wich require 10mm spanner
for the same bracket the 2 screws where it's bolted to the console; remove the bracket
further down the front behind that bracket is another plastic one; slice through the carpet behind that bracket with a knife/scissor and now you have the entire carpet completely free.

there is a way to keep that piece of the carpet intact but that's a bit nonsense imo

Been doing just that with the banger racing car I'm getting parts off. Stopped at the carpet slicing! Those two screws are hard to get to, looks like you'd have to get the dash out to get to them. Expect the bloke who's car it is has ripped the carpet out by now I assume the carpet slice doesn't matter cos you can't see it when the trims all there.

Watch out for the wiring loom if you weld near it!! I wrap it in wet cloths It gets dodgey where it goes under the seat frame and you can't move it away. Also watch for flying blobs of molten metal spoiling stuff, plastic carpets /even glass and eyes!

Hell Driver wrote: I assume the carpet slice doesn't matter cos you can't see it when the trims all there.

yep, that's the idea; you don't see a bit of it once you got it all back in there and it saves an hour work for getting the dash out.

Hell Driver wrote: Watch out for the wiring loom if you weld near it!! I wrap it in wet cloths It gets dodgey where it goes under the seat frame and you can't move it away. Also watch for flying blobs of molten metal spoiling stuff, plastic carpets /even glass and eyes!

yeah also handy to mention; in the left chassisbeam or your 360 are the fuel lines; this runs from the front all the way to the gearbox/fuel tank right next to the centre console. i don't know where your rust is located but you might have to do something about that too!!

Forgot about the fuel lines, my recent welding on the Mk 3 didn't go near them at the front, only the back. Must remember when I'm doing my Mk 1 cos the outriggers near them are very bad. They might even be showing through the holes!

Dashboard support bracket was bit hard to remove, so I cut the carpet so I could get it out, rest was pretty easy, imo. Center console, I think that took rear part out first, then front part, just can't remember too well even it was only few days ago. My carpet was so rotten/black stuff growing in it, that I did not really think about saving it, so cut quite harshly, will need to buy new one at some point.

Removing bitumen is quite easy if it is warm day and you have one of these:


I had one without handle, thin metal so it flexes a bit and it is quite easy to push under the bitumen, push from several places before lifting tool up, so you get larger area removed at once, maybe possible to remove almost whole sheet of bitumen without tearing it to pieces, but that would be very time consuming. Took probably something like 5minutes to remove bitumen from one side with that tool so it is a lot easier than any other method I know of.

Usually there is more places of rust that first it looks, so be prepared