Now that the rollbar is in the last step is to reassemble all of the interior trim and carpets.

Part 3:  Reassembly

I’ll start with the easiest piece to prepare for reassembly, the lower carpets behind the driver and passenger seats.  These need to be cut in order to fit around the lower attachment point of the rollbar below the seatbelt towers.

Carpet needs to be trimmed slightly to fit back around the rollbar

Carpet is easy to trim using a box cutter or scissors

The aluminum gas tank cover also needs a bit of a trim in order to put it back in place.  I marked out the necessary areas that needed to be removed and then cut it with aviation snips.

Measure twice, cut once...

The area that is to be removed is marked out

Now before you bolt that cover back on, make sure that the insulation pad around where the rear mounts of the rollbar currently are get reinstalled first.  Just mark out and cut the pad to fit around the rear mount plate.

Insulation pad is replaced before the cover goes back on

With the cover cut and the insulation pads replaced the cover can be bolted back on.  Remember to clip the lower carpet back onto the cover when everything is reinstalled.

Aluminum cover and lower carpeting reinstalled

Now to the upper carpet.  The insulation, rubber layer and the carpet all need to be cut around the rear brace of the rollbar.  This is pretty self-explanatory stuff but its a real pain to do because the top needs to be up to reinstall the carpet.  All I can say is that patience is a virtue, so take off small sections at a time and keep test fitting until you get it right.

Carpet and insulation cut to fit around rear of rollbar

Carpet is reinstalled after a while of cutting and test fitting

The last part to reinstall is the ‘quarter trim’ seat belt tower plastic covers.  The instructions from the manufacturer suggested either to cut the quarter trim into two pieces (no thanks…) or to carefully cut the cover to fit around the lower mount of the rollbar.  It really just took a lot of test fitting and making additional cuts to get it to fit just right, but I think overall they came out pretty decently.  It helps that the lower carpet is able to cover up a lot of the cover that has been cut.  With this piece back in the rollbar install is complete!

Trimmed quarter trim panel behind the lower carpet

Completed re-install of quarter trim

With the rollbar installed the car definitely feels more rigid and responsive.  Now that the rollbar is installed the car should be ready to pass tech inspection for a trackday.