Running Flooring Seamlessly Into the Cab

[Flux]

Good advice here. The hiardryer should work fine, I would probably melts something with a full on hat gun.

I may go buy a cheap vinyl remnant at a flooring store and practice on the cab area. That is a very good idea!! Thanks.

I have some sample pieces too. I can use those to see how the material bends and forms with some heat.

I have about 2 hours left until the rear deck is finished and ready for flooring. Marathon van day yesterday. I need about 40 of those.

[Flux]

Got my plywood and aluminum mounting plates in today. These run up to the wire crossover. A couple of strange things:

The doghouse is not centered, or at least where the peak at the bottom sticks out. Took me a minute. The cupholder is centered.

The floor in there is "sculptural". It humps up over the tranmission and then angles back down toward either side.


So my plan is to make a wedge that will taper down from where my plywood s proud toward the doghouse and chamfer toward the seats. Hopefully with some heat and massaging, the vinyl will somewhat form into that area. I fully expect a less than perfect job here, but it should be better than that black mat.

[Otter]

Grab your phone and post some pics... we don't want to miss a single moment of this. Cause, you know, I'd rather watch you making and fixing your mistakes here than for me to reinvent the wheel when my time comes.



.

[Flux]

Sure will Otter!

Picked up a Hitachi heat gun, cheap and goes 120 to 1200 degrees. The piece I got is 90 wide by 20ft long, so I have a bunch of scrap to try the different areas where I kind of need to "form" the flooring.

Working on some 3d Printed transitions that will come off the plywood deck into the cab. That is the first trick. Second trick is gonna be the foot wells. I fully expect some areas with voids underneath, but those should be in and around the front seats where there is not foot traffic.

Backup plan is to cut up the molded humps from my black mat and lay the flooring on top and to the side of them in the footwells. That wouldn't be too bad really. All depends on how well I can stretch and from the flooring. Maybe use some kydex on the footwells?

But really, I have little clue what I am doing other than having some educated guesses.

[Flux]

Purchased a cheapie Hitachi heat gun and did a quickie test last night. Basically I bent a Loncoin sample 90 degrees over my workbench edge. With no heat it certainly would not form and basically radius-ed itself. I put the gun on 800 degrees and heated the bend slowly and uniformly. It softened quite a bit and the material became stretchy. I held it in place and got a much sharper bend and let it cool. The material kept some of this bend when it cooled.

So I do feel that this material can be formed with heat and keeping pressure on it while it cools. I think it's gonna be a slow process of heating and working it into shape and using some heavy weight to hold it in place. I don't think I will be able to stretch it enough to form over the footwell bumps, but I sure will try! Might be a secondary piece that get's glued in there for the side walls. I am cool with that for the sake of a consistent floor throughout the van.

Another thought as stated before is to get the material warm before laying it and keep it warm. The temps just dropped here so I am thinking of heating the van and keeping it pretty warm in there before going after it.

[bemerritt]

You are a better man than I! I decided to do mine in two parts. The front cab and the back area. The back will be attached to the plywood floor with some vinyl flooring adhesive. In the front I plan on putting a layer of dynamat down and then basically make a big floating mat out of the rubber flooring. Should be able to get full coverage, except for the sides of the footwells as you mentioned.

[Flux]

Originally Posted by bemerritt

You are a better man than I! I decided to do mine in two parts. The front cab and the back area. The back will be attached to the plywood floor with some vinyl flooring adhesive. In the front I plan on putting a layer of dynamat down and then basically make a big floating mat out of the rubber flooring. Should be able to get full coverage, except for the sides of the footwells as you mentioned.

I appreciate it but I haven't truly attempted it yet!

Floating it in the cab should work out considering all the hold down points like the sills, seats, and doghouse. You might consider a layer of closed cell foam over the dynamat. I have a generic dynamat and two layers of 1/8" ensolite. It made a huge difference in sound transmission and the floor has a bit of squish and I get some insulation too.

[Surfvan]

Originally Posted by Flux

I appreciate it but I haven't truly attempted it yet!

Floating it in the cab should work out considering all the hold down points like the sills, seats, and doghouse. You might consider a layer of closed cell foam over the dynamat. I have a generic dynamat and two layers of 1/8" ensolite. It made a huge difference in sound transmission and the floor has a bit of squish and I get some insulation too.

I see this is a pretty old post. Did you end up running your flooring all the way through? If so, how did the process go? How is the flooring holding up? Anything you would change? Thanks!

[Stewgod]

I'm about to start this project... Home Depot has a 7.5x17 for $199

[Surfvan]

Originally Posted by Stewgod

I'm about to start this project... Home Depot has a 7.5x17 for $199

Are you insulating? If so with what? Are you going to
Run this flooring all the way through the front cab?