While many hard-core Jeepers disdain the use of carpet in their rigs, for our “beach runner and mild wheeler” purposes some lightwieght automotive carpet will both protect the new paint and be easy on bare feet.

Since the CJ6 up front is the same as a CJ5 I could have purchased a partial aftermarket carpet kit to start with.  However, what I’ve seen are kits that will carpet both the floor and sidewalls, wheelhousings, etc and I didn’t want that.  I decided that I’d just cut my own carpet.  I’d done this in the past in my CJ5 and tried to install as I cut, and it didn’t come out well.  This time I made some patterns first by working in pieces of newspaper:

The patterns worked well - I just had to pull the carpet twice for minor trimming.  The carpet is from Menards and is an automotive grade.  It’s lightweight, low knap, and the back doesn’t seem too abrasive. It cost about $25 for a piece that allowed room for a few mistakes.

First section of carpet cut and fitted.

And the front piece.  In the past I found it challenging to get the carpet to look good around the shifters, so this time decided to mount the transmission cover over the carpet:

Once both sections were cut I dropped them off at a local upholstery shop to have the edges bound.  This cost roughly $50 - but well worth it in terms of appearance:

Here’s the front carpet installed along with the transmission cover, shifter boots, and some floormats I cut out of a heavy duty rubber truck bed mat:

Overall the carpet really came out nice, it lays in well with a minium of folds or puckers.  The rollcage and floormats hold it down so well I didn’t even have to secure it down with velcro or snaps.  This way, if it doesn’t work out long term I can easily pull it and just run floormats.