My front carpet is in really good shape. I have no complaints save one. While the carpets are in dandy condition, with the sound deadening foamy stuff glued to the bottom of the carpet, they are not attached to my floorboard. Is the sound deadening foam suppose to be glued to the floor? If so, is there a recommended way to do this?

I have thought of spray adhesive as the obvious choice, but that could get messy.

then I thought of using super strong velcro strips. Less messy, but may be noisy. But it would allow me to periodically clean underneath the carpet and check the floorpan on the inside.

Curious as to what others have done.

As a fellow Texan and neighbor. I would advise against sticking them to the floor. It is just tooo humid here in Houston and moisture is sure to find its way in and rust your baby!

Good advice, so you would recommend the velcro strips if anything then. Easy removal and cleaning I will be applying more POR15 before I do anything anyway, but I will take your words to heart.

I'm not an expert on acoustics, but I kinda figured sound deadening needed to be in solid contact with the surface transmitting the vibrations (the body of the car) to be effective.

Is the padding on the underside of the carpet intended for insulation/sound deadening? I always figured it was just padding, like the carpet padding underneath the carpet in your house.

It just depends on the degree of originality you want to maintain in your car. In early cars, the natural fibre jute was not glued down anywhere in the car and carpet just lay on top, also not glued. Very early cars used velco on carpets to hold footwell carpet, and rear deck carpet in place. Later series 1 cars had brackets just in front of the seats which the carpet looped over through serge bound holes.

As above and also, my 73 has snaps imbedded in the front of the carpet that snaps in place on the firewall. The corosponding snaps are mounted in the black cardboard.

Bonzi Lon

Always assumed the jute was for padding, the 'tar' sheets stuck to the floor pans were for sound-deadening.

well, it depends on how much sound you want to deaden, i guess. If the sound deadening material is not stuck to the floor, or only stuck in some spots, you will lose or lessen the capacity to deaden the resonances that happen across the sheet metal. I will block the transmission of external noise either way, but not the resonances. On the other hand, i share your worry about not being able to get in there and check for rust later on. I may compromise and glue it down except in the front footwell, where I am most worried about the rust returning.

I do not think the Velcro trick will be very effective unless it is bonded to the body with epoxy or JB Weld. You could try to only glue "Here and There" to make removal and inspection easier in the future. JB Weld is your friend.