Door Panels
Door Panels I have a question for any of you interior pros out there. I recently purchased the leather kit from Specialized Stainless. I have a T/A and i am trying to figure out how to take the door panels apart, and then more importantly how to put them back together. Of course in order to wrap all the parts of the door panel it has to come all the way apart. Any info appreciated.
Matt
Matt
Its been a while since Ive done mine, but just pull all the insulation material off the back of the door panel. You might need to use a razorblade and cut along as youre pulling up to get it to come off in some spots because of the glue.
Underneath that, youll see a bunch of greyish plastic blobs, and several white ones. You can try to use a screwdriver or plyers to break them off, but most likely youre going to need to again use your trusty razorblade and cut them off. Pretty much what it is, is that under each of those blobs, is a post that runs from the piece behind it, and the blob of plastic is there to keep them from coming apart. So basically youre cutting off the head of a screw if that makes any sense. Once you get all those off, and there are a lot of them, the panels will all pull apart into their individual pieces. Once you wrap the panels, you can use the plastic blobs that you broke off to reattach the panels. You want to use the rods as a guide to put the panels back into place like you found them, and then using epoxy you can find at any autoparts store for repairing plastics, just reattach the plastic heads (grayish blobs) onto the rods. Or others just discard the plastic heads entirely, and just use a bead of epoxy to in a sense make a new blob thatll hold the panels together.
To remove the weather stripping at the top of the door panel, just flip it over and youll see its held on by several staples. Just use a screwdriver to bend the tips of the staples back straight, and then theyll pull out just like any other staple.
Hopefully that makes sense, and good luck!
Underneath that, youll see a bunch of greyish plastic blobs, and several white ones. You can try to use a screwdriver or plyers to break them off, but most likely youre going to need to again use your trusty razorblade and cut them off. Pretty much what it is, is that under each of those blobs, is a post that runs from the piece behind it, and the blob of plastic is there to keep them from coming apart. So basically youre cutting off the head of a screw if that makes any sense. Once you get all those off, and there are a lot of them, the panels will all pull apart into their individual pieces. Once you wrap the panels, you can use the plastic blobs that you broke off to reattach the panels. You want to use the rods as a guide to put the panels back into place like you found them, and then using epoxy you can find at any autoparts store for repairing plastics, just reattach the plastic heads (grayish blobs) onto the rods. Or others just discard the plastic heads entirely, and just use a bead of epoxy to in a sense make a new blob thatll hold the panels together.
To remove the weather stripping at the top of the door panel, just flip it over and youll see its held on by several staples. Just use a screwdriver to bend the tips of the staples back straight, and then theyll pull out just like any other staple.
Hopefully that makes sense, and good luck!
Copy & Paste Moderator
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 9,764
Likes: 208
From: Eastern MA
Check out this write-up on removing and disassembling the door panels:
http://www.lastofthebreed.com/Instal.../DoorPanel.htm
I followed that disassembly to recover the centers of my door panels with silver cloth. Except that instead of re-melting the posts, I used a blob of LockTite Plastic Epoxy on each post and kept some pressure/weight on the panel to hold it together until the epoxy hardened. I didn't use contact cement for the whole thing either, only the edges that get folded over so that I didn't get any glue bleeding through the cloth. I used some "carpet tape" also around the edge that doesn't get folded over to help hold things in place.
http://www.lastofthebreed.com/Instal.../DoorPanel.htm
I followed that disassembly to recover the centers of my door panels with silver cloth. Except that instead of re-melting the posts, I used a blob of LockTite Plastic Epoxy on each post and kept some pressure/weight on the panel to hold it together until the epoxy hardened. I didn't use contact cement for the whole thing either, only the edges that get folded over so that I didn't get any glue bleeding through the cloth. I used some "carpet tape" also around the edge that doesn't get folded over to help hold things in place.
