dzywicki

Recently had to get the windshield replaced on a '98 XJ. Of course it rained really heavy the next day and some water leaked in to the passenger side. I pulled up the carpet and the backing was pretty wet. Decided to strip out the carpet and try to pressure wash it. Surprised it comes out so quickly. I recently had to add the big boy brackets for my high school son (he's learning to drive this and was really cramped - 6'2 - 225 lb offensive lineman). The big boy brackets went in really easily and really do add 3" of leg room.
Back to the real story. I bought this '98 last year with a blown motor (PO used well water and the thermostat rusted shut). The carpet was pretty nasty and I wanted to do something about it anyway. Took about 30 minutes to get it out. Remove seats, remove trim, remove kick panels, remove shift ****, remove center console, pop out bottom of rear seat, remove carpet.
I used several cleaners at once, lifter-1, west coast something or other and purple power. Sprayed a good mix and then pressure washed it. Didn't get everything out, but looks much better. Decided to go ahead take out the back carpet too. trim came off easily but ran into trouble with the seat belt anchor bolts. I broke them free with a pipe, but they fought a lot. Didn't want to strip the torx heads so just cut the carpet. The cuts are under the rear seat so won't be visible anyway. I didn't get to do the rear carpet but will be doing that tomorrow.
The brown water coming up from the front carpet was really gross. I kept going over it with a pressure washer until the water was not brown. The before and after pics were pretty telling of how much gunk came out. I did take off all the backing. It was all pretty nasty and wet. Will have to find a suitable replacement tomorrow before I put it all back in.
Also got to clean the plastic trim. I have an old shark steam cleaner. Fired that up and it really cleaned up the plastic. then sprayed it down with Lucas interior touch up and it all looked like new.

tech

Did you try Oxi clean ? I used it on some seats before and it got out some bad stains and it came out very clean . Purple power only works good on oil and grease .