My door panels look great, but the cardboard backing on them is damaged by water. They are horribly warped. I was thinking about making new panels anyway, to liven up the interior. It's currently black with light gray trim, but I've painted most of the trim with that Krylon Fusion crap to turn it black (I do not recommend this product). The majority of the interior is black. I am getting my headrests embroidered with the FIRECHICKEN in white very shortly (i'll provide pics!). But the colors available in my car are black, gray, blue, and white.

Anyway, I was told that I should ditch the cardboard backings, and replace them with something stronger and potentially easier to manage. Someone suggested using masonite. I don't know what I'll use, but I think I will permanently mount the christmas-trees (the "stays" to hold the panel to the door) by drilling through my material just deep enough to get the ridges to stick out, then applying glue over top of them.

I'm going to be using vinyl with a foam behind it. I don't know how I plan to design it, but I am guessing I should use a sewing machine to stitch it all up. I haven't used one of those in about 7 or 8 years but I think I can manage. The colors I'll use are black and white. I was thinking about making a 3d "FIREBIRD" text somewhere on the panel itself, possibly by stacking foam cutouts or something.

That's what I don't know about, so thats the point of this thread. I'm looking for advice, suggestions, DOs and DON'Ts, and any kind of ideas you can come up with. Thanks a lot!

 

A friend of mine used his old rotting cardboard door panel as a template and made new ones out of plexiglass and recovered those. How much white are you planning on using? I think it would be nice if you came up witha good looking stitch pattern to give it a different look than stock. Try to use some other materials too...like maybe have a part with perforated vinyl or some faux suede material. I went to an upholstery store the other day and looked at some of their suede like material and its super nice and feels real soft.

 

I would recommend that instead of glueing the trim retainers (christmas trees) in place, fabricate some oval shaped holes like the originals.... so that you have some room for adjustments. Autozone sells a little box of 20 or so oval headed fasteners for like 3 bucks, and they are easier to use than the factory pac-man headed ones. They slip straight into the oval holes and you twist 'em 90 degrees to make 'em stay. There's no guarantee that all the fastener holes on every third gen door are identical, and that's part of why GM made them somewhat adjustable. If you glue them in place, and one or two don't line up exactly, you will create a hump in the panel. As for material, some guys use 1/8 inch thick hard plastic...... I don't see why you couldn't use real thin plywood,or a piece of that phenolic or pressboard they use to make those cheapo cabinet sliding doors with. Or get some fiberglass sheeting body shops use.

There's a lot of good threads here on doing door panels, a little searching will get you a lot of good ideas. also, there's a tech article about refinishing door panels!

GL with your project, take some pics!

 

I was reading that earlier, had some good ideas in there.

 

buy the tool to take the top plastic peice off the door panel, it was hard to not break that thing without it

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...3&goto=newpost

 

that's stupid- it requires its own tool to remove? man that sucks.

 

I may be making my own custom door panels in the future, my current ones look fine but the backing dosn't want to hold the clips anymore because it has gotten wet. I would stay away from wood, only because it too will get wet like the cardboard and possibly warp. The plexiglass or the fiberglass sounds like a good idea too.

 

Yes, it does suck, but after you spend some time trying to get them off with needle-nose pliers, you will want the special tool!

 

just rip em off and drill em out and replace with a little bolt and nut... im not too into half assing things, but i seem to have to take my door panels off 4979 times a year and those things a f&%%ing stupid.

 

Taking the door panels off is one thing, but i can't see it being very often that you have to take the upper trim piece off unless you are replacing it or the door panel.

 

The top black plastic panels require thier own tool? Psh, BS. My brother and I pull door panels off and put them back on all the time, I've never broken one. Just push down and out and pull up. You gotta kinda play with it though.

As for making new door panels, I was going to do that to, using 1/4" MDF fiberboard.

 

wont that warp though? or turn to mush if it gets wet?

 

The tool that they're talking about is used to remove the speed nuts holding the upper trim piece to the cardboard door panel. The tool looks to basically be an allen key with a hole in the middle. You can remove it with pliers but risk breaking the little plastic studs off.

 

I am thinking of ideas for my vinyl now

 

I used 1/8" thick fiber board as the backing for my door panels. It's similar to the dark brown clipboards you see for .90 at Wal-Mart. This was almost 3 years ago and they're still solid.

 

where would I find this stuff at? hardware or crafts?

 

I got mine at Lowe's. 4' by 8' sheet was less than $5.

 

I was thinking of doing this too, at some point, but I would have to say go with the plastic. Why take a change ruining the panel if it would get wet?

 

Mdf seems too absorbant, it also tends to crumble when working with it. I used to work at a conversion van company, and they cut all their own walls before covering them w/cloth...
1/4" luann plywood was the product of choice, very durable and reuseable if taking panels on and off all the time.

 

I just bought some door panels (the "deluxe" firebird ones) but the top holes that hold the black plastic window trim are all ripped open. Is there an easy way of fixing this?

 

I had this problem on mine too. Stupid cardboard! Anyway, as a temporary fix I took some duct tape and wrapped it over the top of the panel and cut a small hole in it for the stud on the plastic strip to go thru. only wrap about a 1/2" or less on the front so the top strip will hide it.

good luck