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Question about carpet:
I have half secured the rear carpet in place, but I am at a quandary about the metal shelf. First issue is what purpose does it serve? Is it a footrest, or protector for the under-seat heater? There was not any remnant of the original carpeting, nor can I locate a photo of how the carpet is attached under the front seat. The metal shelf appears to have spots of old glue; causing me to believe the carpet went over or perhaps wrapped with some carpet going under. I am leaning towards this avenue. Not from wisdom but the fact that going up onto to the shelf will block the heaters output.

And I thought wrong about the hardest seat portion to start the upholstery on. The front seat upper was extremely harder than the back seat upper. You can hide a lot of mistakes when you can’t see that backside of a seat.

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From what I remember from some prior year ads I believe the metal "shelf" is designed to be a footrest. On models that did not have the built in shelf Packard offered an optional moveable footrest as shown in a 55-6 brochure. I believe on cars with the built in piece the carpet was the same as the floor material but was cut to fit the metal shape with the cut edges bound in a fashion similar to that used on the regular carpet edges. The finished strip was cemented to the shelf and you are correct that the rear was left open so the underseat heater could move air. Don't remember if the tapered sides were covered or just painted. I don't believe there was any added padding.

The footrest was carpeted with its own separate piece from the rear piece. Group number 31.424. I will grab some pics from my 400 shortly. I removed the rear carpet due to damage but not the footrest carpet so it should be helpful.

By the way, the front carpet is also in 2 pieces to accommodate the front of the transmission tunnel.

Great job on the upholstery. This is not your first rodeo?

Here are some photos. I think this will give you the effective dimensions within a close margin as you can see it's veey newrly the same size as just the footrest. The "tail" in the middle is of noncritical length as it's under the rear carpet, you can tell from the color change in my photo since it never got dirty. This is the factory carpet. There does not appear to be padding under this carpet. Instead I think it was just glued on. Excuse the paper and foam from, I suppose, an errant mouse...

Note the first photo, the foreground carpet is part of the front piece not the footrest piece.

4th photo is a close up of the corner, camera pointing towards front and turned.

5th photo is the front of the footrest. Carpet meets it flush, essentially. As you can see, part of under the seat there is no carpeting. Only the factory spray on coating for anti rust and sound deadening.

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Staples

I was reading a thread about a heater assembly noting the industrial staples used. I did not wish to "hijack" that discussion going off topic on the staples, so I posted my question here

packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=29021

Recently dropped my dash for several reasons. One of which is to replace the vinyl on the dash. The vinyl is sandwiched between the lower and upper dash. I have noticed the upper dash is attached to the lower dash by staples and 5/16" small screws at the ends. Both pieces are metal. My first thought was those are serious staples, followed by that must have been one heck of a stapler. Interested in thoughts of what to use to reattach the two sections once I remove the two dozen staples.

? #2
while I have easy access to the instrument cluster, I will replace all of the bulbs. was considering LED's due to their longer life. Has anyone tried them. I used them in my front turn signals; but I regret that now. They are so sensitive that when one turn signal is on the other will blink (25% as bright) So, on my list of to-do items, is to go back to regular bulbs for the turn signals. My fear about the LED in the dash is that the dimmer feature will be mute.

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As Kev said in another thread, other places staples were used is on the finder skirt edges to hold the anti squeak web material across the top and sides, also on the gravel shields to hold rubber cushions or the rubber fill strip behind the bumper to the gravel shield metal. The inner fender rubber and wheel well pieces on the 50 and earlier models was also stapled on. Some models also had the fuzzy bottom of window belt weatherstrips both on the door and on the removable inner molding piece stapled on.

There is a video showing a part of one of the car factory lines where this was being done. The wire was on a spool and the machine cut and formed then pushed the wire directly thru the metal, no premade holes needed. As hard as the staples are to straighten or cut and remove it must be some really hard wire.

Unless the LEDs have a resistance load built into them mimic the resistance of a regualar incandescentbylb, they will make the regular (mechanical) flasher relays do all kinds of funky things. Generally, you need to replace the relay with an electronic type vs the original mechanical type that doesn't flash based on resistance load.

Remember, you must use LEDs of the appropriate color so if there is a green lens, use a green LED and so forth. The light wavelength of LEDs is different so you won’t see much color if just relying on the lens itself as the LED light will effectively bleach it out.

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Figure out NOW whether you can fit a pop rivet gun in there; if not, whether it would be suitable to use self tappers.

If neither looks good, obviously you are stuck with the staples.

If you can rivet or screw it back together, then drill your pilot holes BEFORE you pull it apart so that everything will be aligned.

For pop rivets: consider reaching out to your local airplane club to borrow some Cleco's with their attaching gun to align the rivet holes. Cleco's are essentially temporary rivets that are removed one at a time to install the pop rivet. It would help ensure alignment as you rivet it together.