Yesterday I received in the mail a set of door panels I purchased. Unfortunately the driver’s side door arrived cracked at the top near the vent next to the window. I could probably get away with using a vinyl repair kit since most of the crack will be covered by the vent and the molding at the bottom of the window, plus I was planning on repainting the door anyway.

But I wanted to know if anyone had successfully rewrapped the door in vinyl. People have had mixed success with painting, but vinyl won’t chip.

All the websites I’ve seen so far for re-covering door panels have dealt with fairly flat panels from old musclecars or classics. Our door panels are very curvy and there are two spots in particular that worry me in terms of stretching the vinyl. (The top rear corner and the corner that protrudes out bellow the A/C vent)

I’d rather deal with a small, practically hidden, crack than with wrinkles. But like I said vinyl would be more durable on the doors since they tend to take a bit of abuse.

BTW is the door panel made of fiberglass reinforced plastic? After dismantling the door last night my hands started to itch like I had been working with FRP.

the only pic i have seen of it done was one that 9D9 posted a long time ago with some chic with a car that looked similar to his that had done hers in white...i dont think it was done that well. ask him, he might still have the pic.

couldnt you repair it from the bottom, then use some bondo or some filler on the top, then paint over it?

The problem isn’t really the crack; there’s a quarter-sized area around the crack where a chunk of the vinyl and foam came off.

I was planning on repairing the door panel by screwing a strip of metal to bridge the crack from underneath, then maybe applying some resin or epoxy to make sure nothing moves around.

I was thinking of getting a vinyl repair kit to fill in the missing vinyl with a matching texture. I wouldn’t have to worry about matching the color since I intend to paint the door panel black.

But I wanted to know if it was feasible to recover the whole door panel to make it more durable and not have to worry too much about the missing vinyl.

she had it done. btw- crushed velvet is fucking PIMP! :rolleyes Here u go- her door panel is cracked too. Can't remember where, I just know it was all cracked up.

WOW! That's exactly how I don't want my doors to look.

The white vinyl is all wrinkled. I think my dress shirts are less wrinkled when they've been sitting in the hamper for a week.

EDIT: the crushed velvet is "intresting"

i have the small piece that she did in crush velvet done on my car in white. i had asked about the whole door being done and the shop said that since it's so many curves and such, that it would cost alot to do it. try to find some good vinyl to do it in and take your time. that's the best i can say. i would try it on an old set i have but i'm not. i have painted them white to go with my interior and it looked great until someone scratched it. hehehehe oh well.

yeah thats the pic i was talking about...looks like shit to me.

Looks ghetto! All you need is some really good adhesive and a heat gun. Just make sure you get good quality stuff that stretches really good. I don't think you'll have a problem. I am making new door panels to house (2) 6.5 woofers in each door. Good luck with the door panels :thumbsup And stay away from that ghetto crap;)

fear dood, the vinyl on the dash also covered her AC vents.. :wary
but it looks um.. interesting :D i was thinking about vinyl but i'm also worried about wrinkles so i think i'm gonna try just paint

It doesn't seam like anyone has recovered the Eclipse door panels. I checked the archives at ASOG as well and most of those guys couldn't even find a shop willing to do the work because the panels are too curvy. The only good rewrap job that I've seen is one of the ASOG guys that wrapped his interior in tweed. But tweed has a lot more stretch than vinyl.

I've worked with both tweed and vinyl, just not on our cars interior...

I'd like to know how tweed stretches more than vinyl?...you've got the wrong vinyl there pal ;)


Get a high stretch, thin, thin backed vinyl....spray adhesive, a heat gun, and some material tools (rollers and edgers and stuff)....and be fuckin patient!

at the show saturday, I noticed her trunk floor was gone. In it's place- a big sheet of crushed velvet crammed down in there. Judging was BS. She got 1st wild DSM out of ummmm 1 car in wild. Interesting that her car is wild. I got 1st mild, and the guy under me is always good competition. Great guy. We talked and he just said WTF!? Her engine bay is almost stock. I'm not even gonna touch on it. lol. I have no idea what the deal was. I think they shoulda moved some of us to wild in that situtation. My interior as well as the 2nd place mild guy is up to her level. (if you wanna say that) The cars are all 3 similar with mods. I'd say I have the most done out of both of them. She knew the people putting on the show. She was upset about her getting in wild tho. B/c she didn't really win anything. They put her there by herself. Another show Sunday. She complained and got judges fired when she was losing. She finally did remove dents. It looked decent as far as body I guess. I hope they get the categories together for Sunday's show. This one's supposed to have a lot of cars. It rained early on and messed them up Saturday. Iono. Her interior is done too loose. Looks like someone put bags over stuff. She acted kewl tho and shook my hand when I won 1st mild. I'mma change my tag and let all that shit go. She doesn't get it anyways I don't think. :rolleyes Damn- I hijacked this thread to explain the current situation on her car. If u guys wanna see more, go to www.visual-stimulations.com That's her car club's site. A few decent cars.

on the interior (to get on topic again) I would check some shops. Doing it yourself would be tough. Maybe you could get leather panels and dye them?

So wait! Let me get this straight...
You won 1st place but there were only 3 DSMs there and one was in the wild class. Damn crazy ass competition huh.
I think I should drive down there and enter to... I wouldnt even have to wash the car to win 3rd place!
-Chris b.

no. There were a lot of dsms. They classed her by herself to keep her quiet. She goes hysterical if she doesn't win anything. They also only had 1st and 2nd. I thought that was kinda lame. It's usually 1st-3rd. Oh well. Seen better shows imo.

no sir, her interior is ugly poo :rolleyes

Looks like she took a buch of white "Hefty" trash bags and tucked them around everything. I was also wondering why the HELL she covered her vents on the side of the dash? That interior is just plain nasty.

several things to add here:

1) tweed is much more difficult to work with then vinyl. amiller had it spot on.

2) thats girls eclipse was done way to fast and it looks like a heat gun wasnt even used. a 6 year old couldve done a better job. hell, another 2 hours and she could at least had the damn duct work cut out and gotten rid of the wrinkles. ive seen those pics before and thought it was a joke...guess not.

3) our door panels shouldnt be that difficult to wrap. im not sure why everyone thinks it is a big deal. you just have to divide them into thier stock sections and work on each piece individually. the hardest part, in my mind, would be the map pockets, as you would have to "tuck" the vinyl down to where it looked good. any quality vinyl will EASILY stretch to fit the contours with minimal heat....you could use a hairdryer if need be. so all you would need would be that, some 3m adhesive spray, a sharp razor blade, and a smoothing tool like a roller (or even a bondo spreader) to get rid of air bubbles and wrinkles.

I didn’t realize tweed was that hard to work with.

This weekend I took apart the door, I removed everything so the only thing left would be the parts that need to be recovered in vinyl. I’ll just use screws to put everything back together since I had to drill out the plastic rivets. I’ll post a picture tomorrow of what a stripped down door looks like (no map pockets to worry about)

I did buy some vinyl this weekend, but just to practice. I didn’t have too much time to play with it, but it didn’t seem like It would be very easy to stretch it to conform to all the contours.

>I did buy some vinyl this weekend, but just to practice. I
>didn’t have too much time to play with it, but it didn’t seem
>like It would be very easy to stretch it to conform to all the
>contours.
>

Dude, did you buy the right kind of vinyl? There's a certain type you want to get and I can't tell you what kind cuz every manufacturer is different. If you got a thick non-stretch kind then yes, it will be EXTREMELY hard to work with. You need thin, high stretch, flexible vinyl that will stand up to heat forming.

Honestly I don't know if it's the right type. It is very thin, but it doens't have a backing. I don't see how a backing would help it strecth any. But like I said I just picked it up to play with since it doesn't even have the right texture.

Where would I find the right type of vinyl?

Do you have any pictures of your vinyl covered projects? Prefereably something that had tight curves.

>Honestly I don't know if it's the right type. It is very
>thin, but it doens't have a backing. I don't see how a backing
>would help it strecth any. But like I said I just picked it up
>to play with since it doesn't even have the right texture.
>
>Where would I find the right type of vinyl?
>
>Do you have any pictures of your vinyl covered projects?
>Prefereably something that had tight curves.


Look through here, you should find the right type.


http://shop.store.yahoo.com/yourautotrim-store/index.html

Actually I was planning on ordering from that site. I recomended it to someone who was intrested in recoving their doors as well.
http://forums.2gnt.com/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=7&topic_id=44762

>ive seen those pics before and thought it was a joke...guess not.

It is a joke.
:P
Nah- I felt sorry for her at the show yesterday. NOBODY likes her car, her attitude, or anything. People were badmouthing her and her car all day. She acts cool to my face, so I just don't say shit anymore. I could care less. One guy said he was gonna start entering wild. B/c atleast his interior wasn't hanging off and falling apart.
Her car was getting bashed all day. One of my friends' had his car beside her, so I got to hear all the negative spectator comments. Ouch. I hate to see her engine bay. I beat her last time- she got the interior done. I beat her this time, she is saying she is going to do the engine bay. Prolly gonna open the hood and unleash some blue spray paint. I hope she does something decent. The car used to be decent competition for me. Now she's throwing money away half assing mods. Getting like 2 things that aren't great instead of 1 that is. My car is a slow process, but I am trying to get quality stuff done. Wow. long post to sum it up.

hey steven
first off congrats to winning at the show yesterday, your car was really clean and you deserved it. also i apologize for not getting to talk to you as much as i wanted to because our club got their all late and i had some really bad issues with my car on the way up, then had to stand in registration for like an hour arghhh anywayz.
i agree i dont really like her interior. its not really wrapped or anything, its just put on their kinda. i was expecting alot more out of her car because i had heard alot about it but when i got their and saw it i had to laugh a lil. the trunk is the worse part. the eclipse next to it with the caddy tail lights was hot though.
hey also you said you were wanting to get your valve cover redone.... if you are interested i would buy it off of you the way it is and give you the one in my car also. we dont have a powedercoating shop here in fayetteville so if you would wanna do it let me know.
well anywayz im out,
jerry

For those who aren’t sure what the door looks like once you remove all the plastic pieces and cloth insert:

Here are the areas I’m worried about:

The areas in red I’m very worried about and the areas in yellow are of concern, but I’m sure it can be dealt with. The circled yellow area is very contoured, but I’m not very worried about it because it will be covered by the lower plastic piece.