I'm going to take the seats out of my 280Z over the winter and fix up the carpeting. I don't think the carpet was put in right because it goes up the side & is tucked under the sill plates, and it's just stuffed up behind the heater/radio and looks really bad. Also, there isn't anything under the seats.

Does anybody have a picture of how the carpet is supposed to look under the seats or around the back of the radio? I think I will also cut the carpets along the rockers, and add the vinyl side pieces & whatever goes under the seats. How do you think it would look if I left out the carpet from in front of the driver's seat and instead put in a rubber floor mat (or something like that)?

As for what's behind the radio & heater, is all the wiring just jumbled up, or should it be sort of straightened out, like all the rest of the wiring? Maybe a pic of what's behind the radio console will help too... I'll go look again what the FSM has.

thx

That sounds pretty much like any stock 280Z I've ever looked at, including mine. Except there shoud be a piece of carpet pad under each seat. As far as the wiring behind the radio, that also sounds normal. When I worked on my A/C and heater, I cleaned up and straightened out the wiring, and used some zip ties to make it a little neater.

I tried to do some of that wire straightening before, but the space is confining, and it's a mess. Maybe I can get the whole radio console out, so I can better see what kind of mess is back there.

Right now, some of the wiring & connectors ( hazard lights connector & something else) is under the carpet. And the carpet under the blower fan, covering the trans tunnel, is pulled away from the firewall. I tried to get it to slip under the one heater hose to hold it down.

I'll get ya a photo of the mess in the morning.

thx.

A couple of years ago, I removed the console, the lower dash panels, and even the glove box in order to get to the heater core, a/c, etc. That made it easier to work with the wiring.