Minivans are BIG

The Grant St. Garage has been occupied of late by a real labor of love. My dear friend and trusted colleague Cindy gave birth to twin boys in September, bringing the household count to five, plus Pete the dog. Cindy's husband Ben bit the bullet and went out looking for a "Mommy-van." I offered him my sincere condolences.

Ben found a 2008 Toyota Sienna in fine mechanical shape, but well under book price because of the state of the interior. Frankly, I think a family of incontinent warthogs lived there - ones that often rolled in grease. Ben asked John Zimmerman to do one of his uber-detailing jobs on the van, but it quickly became obvious that the carpet was just done. Ben ordered an inexpensive replacement from the web, and John recruited me to help change it. Little did we know...


But let's start with the good news - after two weeks of intermittent effort, the carpet is in and the van is back together!

I think we were all thinking, "Just pop out the seats, change the carpet and put the seats back, right?" But no - to remove a carpet, not only the seats but every interior panel that touches carpet must be removed, and in many cases, other panels must be removed to gain access to the ones you really wanted to remove. So, we dove in:

Eventually, the van was sort of gutted from the waist down on the inside:

This view shows how much of the dash had to be removed to get the center console stack out, and it also shows the curious fact that all over the van, the warthogs had managed to get dirt and trash under the carpet and underlayment:

With the carpet out on the shop floor, you can see how filthy it was, but since this blog doesn't have Smell-o-vision, you'll just have to imagine the odor. You can also see the large number of holes and precise edge trims that needed to be made - the new carpet was molded to shape (sort of) but had no holes, and was oversize.

While the interior panels were out, it was much easier to scrub them clean. The rear panels in particular were slimed with multiple cola spills. The cupholders had an actual physical thickness of Coke in them!

John's grandson Daniel helped one Saturday, cleaning the rest of the interior panels and the headliner. He will also help John finish the detailing work and wax that monster. Did I mention that minivans are big?

I was not too impressed with the new underlayment that came with the kit. It was half the thickness of the factory stuff, and not large enough to match the sizes of the original pieces. So, I managed to get the old stuff off, and we used that except in places where spills had soaked through and caused odor problems. We used two thicknesses of the new stuff to replace one of the old. After this photo was taken, we decided to replace the section between the two new sections, since it was a little stinky too.

Finally, it was time to lay the new carpet in place and start trimming. It came in two pieces, which was easier to deal with than the one-piece factory carpet. Trimming and cutting all those holes was nerve-wracking because we often couldn't see or feel the exact spot to cut, and we did make a couple of small boo-boos. We repaired them and told Ben and Cindy they could make a game of looking for them.

Here's the whole carpet in place. We thought we had all the holes cut at that point, but later discovered a few more, and we had to enlarge and trim some of the ones already cut.

We reinstalled all the side panels, using new clips where possible, and then  started on the seats. The 3rd row of seats was by far the most complex, so we started there. They can fold flat into the floor, and the well they drop into had the most poorly molded carpet. We worked and trimmed and even made some relief cuts and overlapped sections, but there were some wrinkles that just wouldn't come out. Think of it as character lines.

One more push today, and the other two rows of seats were installed. Done, and we didn't even have panels or parts left over! Per Ben's instruction, the center seats were installed close together to allow a little work and transit space on the passenger side. They will have three car seats going at once.

And here are the inhabitants of all that clean, new space. That's Everett in the center, flanked by his new brothers Ezra and Cyrus. Or maybe Cyrus and Ezra. I can't tell which is which - all babies look the same to me!

Now the van has made its way to John's so he and Daniel can complete the spa treatment and get the vehicle into service. May it be a worthy and safe chariot for years of family adventures!