How To Repair Loose Car Door Panel Upholstery

A mutual issue for any owner of mid-90s and newer cars is dealing with broken interior plastic. No auto is more fraught with busted plastic than the iv th generation GM F-trunk, which is the 1993 to 2002 Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird. Due to the poor design of the factory door panel, there is considerable stress in the upper rear section of the door panel. Within twenty,000 miles, just about every Camaro and Firebird owner experiences this problem. Since GM stopped producing this panel several years ago, finding a replacement is non piece of cake, so a door panel repair is in social club.

Busted plastic door panels are not just an eyesore. Get your peel snagged in the crack, and you lot will know what pain is. This repair takes a little patience, but the results are worth it.

Finding The Right Door Console Repair Technique

There are many tales of how to repair the panels floating around, some work, some don't. The problem with these repairs is that they do not address the real trouble, which is the need to flex. Even a little flex will help alleviate the stress that causes the panel to crack. Most repairs are done using fiberglass resin and fabric, which does not flex well at all. Eventually, it just breaks off. To solve this trouble, nosotros had to find a dissimilar solution.

The previous repair of fiberglass didn't take because it just doesn't stick very well and has very little flexibility.

The OEMs take been using structural body adhesives for some fourth dimension now, even the 2000 Pontiac Trans Am we are working on uses this to secure the doors to the body. This special adhesive is designed to bail to just nigh anything – metal, wood, fiberglass, plastic, it does it all. In one case cured, the adhesive is very potent however is has a slight yield, it volition give simply enough to save the force per unit area while belongings fast to the plastic. The 1 problem with it is the method of delivery.

Structural body adhesive must be mixed in a certain ratio, which requires an expensive mixing gun that utilizes metering tubes and mixing tubes. This is groovy for using the adhesive in big amounts, merely all we need is a pocket-sized batch. We discovered the same type of production in an easy-mix package from Bondo. Information technology has most of what you demand for the basic repair. We too needed some CA glue (Cyanoacrylate, or super glue), some sand newspaper, light trunk filler, and texture pigment.

Preparing The Door Panel

As with any repair like this, the surface must clean and well prepped. Nosotros cleaned the panel and then sanded information technology with some fourscore-grit sandpaper on both sides to give the epoxy some grip.

We sanded the crack to prep it for the repair. You demand to perform this step so that the epoxy has something to grab onto.

If y'all want the repair to last, you have to finish the fissure. This is washed by drilling the ends of the fissure with a small drill scrap. A crack volition continue to tear the plastic unless you remove the stress signal, drilling does just that.

To go along the crack from continuing, nosotros drilled the stop. Nosotros probably could have used a smaller bit.

We too sanded the within edges of the scissure, adding a bevel. This provides more than surface area for the epoxy to hold.

Nosotros sanded the backside of the crack as well. Brand sure yous sand a wide area so that the repair has as much surface to hold as possible.

Starting The Door Console Repair

The epoxy is mixed up in a one:1 ratio, and so lightly applied to the panel.

The epoxy mixes 1:ane, so only dispense however much you need and mix thoroughly.

There must exist a bankroll for the repair as well; simply spreading the agglutinative across the intermission won't last unless in that location is solid construction underneath. This can be steel, plastic or wire mesh. We used a small piece of wire mesh. The front side of the panel was treated with some more than epoxy, merely a little.

We spread the epoxy onto the panel and then placed the wire mesh on acme, and used the spreader to work the mesh into information technology. Y'all can utilise more epoxy on tiptop if necessary.

Once cured, the refinishing was completed. We lightly sanded the outer surface with 200-grit sandpaper, and then used some 3M glazing filler to smooth out the repair. You don't want big scratches on the outside, those are hard to comprehend. One time the filler was cured, we end sanded it with 200 grit, then 320 grit. The glaze sands very hands and works really well for this type of work.

After the epoxy cured, we used a small-scale block to sand the exterior repair. Sand lightly to ensure minimal scratches on the surrounding areas.

And so we wiped the area with some glazing filler and sanded information technology downwards.

Painting The Door Panel Repair

Now that the repair is done, we accept to pigment it. This is tricky and you may want to practice on some flake cardboard or metallic. We used ii types of paint – a bumper trim pigment for texture and then a color match paint for the color. This car has a black interior, and then it is like shooting fish in a barrel. We laid down five coats of bumper trim pigment, holding the can about 12-16 inches from the panel (this is of import for the texture), and and so dusted it with the blackness interior paint until the sheen matched. Each coat takes x minutes or so to dry out, you want to cheque the sheen afterward each coat. You can fifty-fifty go back and forth with the 2 products, provided the colors match.

A piffling texture paint, sprayed well-nigh sixteen inches from the console bring the texture back to the panel. And then we sprayed information technology with a color lucifer black interior paint.

Nosotros spent several hours repairing 1 door panel on the Trans Am. The finished product looked so much better than the original terminate, we will likely be refinishing the entire interior. We drove the motorcar around for several months earlier writing this story to guess the longevity. With previous repairs, the cracks showed back up within a few weeks, but later several months, this repair has shown no signs of returning.

Once the console is back on the car, the repairs are nearly invisible.

Cheque out all the paint & trunk products available on NAPA Online or trust one of our 17,000 NAPA AutoCare locations for routine maintenance and repairs. For more data on door panel repair with Bondo, conversation with a knowledgeable proficient at your local NAPA AUTO PARTS store .

Jefferson Bryant View All

A life-long gearhead, Jefferson Bryant spends more time in the store than anywhere else. His career began in the car audio manufacture equally a shop managing director, eventually working his fashion into a position at Rockford Fosgate as a product designer. In 2003, he began writing tech manufactures for magazines, and has been working as an automotive journalist ever since. His work has been featured in Auto Craft, Hot Rod, Rod & Custom, Truckin', Mopar Muscle, and many more. Jefferson has also written iv books and produced endless videos. Jefferson operates Red Clay Rodz, his personal garage studio, where all of his mag manufactures and tech videos are produced.

Source: https://knowhow.napaonline.com/door-panel-repair-with-bondo-bumper-repair/

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