Help needed for carpet install

Hey guys. I have a 1998 xj and plan on installing some after market carpet I have acquired. She's pretty worn and it's a daily driver so she deserves it. My question is seeing how it is not pre molded will I encounter any issues that adhesive spray cannot solve.. any ideas as to what spray or gue adhesive I should use? I have never done this before so any and all help is appreciated.

I would not glue down carpet of any type. To me the dollar cost of pre molded carpet is far less than the time cost and aggravation of trying to fit raw carpet over all the Cherokee lumps and bumps. Around here, good condition used carpets are not hard to find and they cost under $15. $2.00 at the self service car wash, and it is clean as new, and smells good also.

Thanks for responding. I had not considered simply washing it. However this route IS more practical. Any advice as to rust spot treating if I find any?

Use a wire brush on a drill or 3M product and go down to bare metal. Brush on some Rust-Oleum.

Old_crow1 said:

Thanks for responding. I had not considered simply washing it. However this route IS more practical. Any advice as to rust spot treating if I find any?

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I hope you find only a small spot or two. many who read this feel the same way.

It's not going to fit if it's not premolded, unless you only plan on doing small sections. I put carpet in from another xj and it was still a pain to get it down and it was OE!

Thanks for the responses guys. That's will be a project I need to revamp so to speak

I bought some pre-molded carpet off of ebay about 12 years ago. You will need to pull a ton of trim and all the seats, but it will look nice when you are done. If you can get lucky and find one at a pick-n-pull, like the man said, a good cleaning will do wonders. I use a mixture of oxyclean and super clean in a bucket. I soak the carpet and scrub it down. A pressure washer will then do wonders. The key is to get all the soap out.

If you buy the carpet and have the option for more padding, get it. It will quiet things down a lot more.

Tim_MN said:

I would not glue down carpet of any type. To me the dollar cost of pre molded carpet is far less than the time cost and aggravation of trying to fit raw carpet over all the Cherokee lumps and bumps. Around here, good condition used carpets are not hard to find and they cost under $15. $2.00 at the self service car wash, and it is clean as new, and smells good also.

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think about just ripping out the old carpet and stopping there?
I had the inevitable leak in my '88 -- it was dripping up in the footwells, getting under the carpet, and wicking almost as far back as the rear seats. I pulled the carpet, it was damp as hell, smelled horrible, and had rust all over the floor boards. I was going to replace with pre-molded carpet-- I pulled everything out, fixed the leaks, sanded all the rusted spots down to bare metal (good thing the rust wasn't that deep), and sprayed multiple coats of bed-liner.

Ended up canceling the pre-molded carpet and just going with husky floor mats, the bed liner actually didn't look half-bad.

Of course, this is not a DD, so I understand that this may not be for you. If you're set on replacing the carpet, +1 on getting even us3ed premold. Rent a Stanley steamer rug cleaner from a local drug store/super market, it will look better and be far easier to install than non-premolded carpet.