308 carpet

I have wondered if the original carpet in our cars is wool or synthetic. Different f-chatters and owners have had different views. I tried to find out. I heated my soldering iron to 450 deg F and touched the corner of a sample of my 308 carpet, a sample of nylon carpet and a sample of wool carpet. I picked the temp 450F because it is near the melting point of many nylon formulations.

On the Wilton wool 212N sample the fibers seemed melt at 450F. At 600F the fibers seemed to dust away without evidence of melting. Lanolin vs fiber reaction? They also smelled very bad.

The Dorsett Essex 1040 nylon sample AND the sample from my 1980 308 gtsi had fibers that melted together.

This suggests to me that the original 308 carpet is synthetic or at best is a synthetic/wool blend.

Would love to hear from others who might know more…


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