R&R rear carpet aluminum runners

Hey again gang-
So I bought/installed one of those OEM rear cargo trays a bit ago, and today I was cleaning under it and noticed a bit of rust along a few of those rear aluminum carpet runners that are attached to the top of the rear cargo carpet.

Pulled the tray out, and many of the runner's were white (I'm guessing it was salt leftover from dripping SCUBA equipment after a dive) and many of them were showing rust, which I wiped off the runner easily, though it got on the carpet itself now. The more I felt the carpet, the more I found it was wet/damp. Loads of baby powder took care of the immediate dampness, but I was wondering how to remove the lightweight aluminum strips that are molded into the rear cargo carpet to clean them well, and make sure the carpet is dry underneath them.

Are they screwed to the carpet from the underside? Does the rear carpet have to come out to get them off? Ideas about re-attaching them?

Thanks for the tips, gang. As always, my first thought was "I bet the guys on the list will know what to do!"

g @ [email protected]

rivets hold the strips in place

Ok. From the backside? The carpet must come out first? Or do the black end caps hide the rivets?

On my 91 it had rivets from behind. I just did a search and found that some XJ strips were screwed down. remove black end caps and see of there are screws. The "bodies" of the strips may be glued down to the carpet if the ends are screwed down.

Good luck

Just to calm my nerves, is there anything under the carpet in the cargo hatch area that could leak water and get the carpet wet back there?

I had a similar problem to what you're describing and peeling back the carpet revealed rust holes that water was splashing up through

hmmm....splashing water rules me out for sure (CA driver, doesn't rain here much). Could you see the rust holes if you looked UP from underneath?