To replace the door cards the door has to be stripped. The wood capping were coming off anyway as I am having them re lacquered. The door fittings were removed and the door card taken off. The vinyl material is easily parted from the door cards with a hair drier used to soften the glue and a special tool to remove the hundreds of staples that hold the vinyl to the card. Originally the vinyl had a foam material backing but this had turned to powder so I decided to use a foam carpet underlay as a replacement. Its soft, water proof, easily glued in to position and cut to the size of the card. I used two layers of the foam to give it a nice soft feel. I then cut two grooves in the foam I had laid down for the area where the ribbed section of the vinyl sits. On the centre section between the grooves I put another two layers of the foam on to give it some body as this section on the original door cards is slightly raised or padded.
I took the vinyl to the kitchen sink and much to the delight of my wife gave it a good clean using a foam scourer and washing up liquid. Even though I clean the door cards every week by wiping them down the dirt that came off was amazing. The vinyl had become quite hard around the edges especially where it had been bent over the edge. Using my wife’s hair dryer (She is so understanding) I heated the edges until they became soft and then pinned them flat on a table with books to keep them down. When they had cooled the vinyl was flat and I could offer it up to the door card.
I decided to use double sided tape in the grooves to hold the ribbed sections it in place first as this lined the rest of the vinyl up with the holes. The double sided tape was attached to the door card and then using my wife’s hair dryer, I heated the vinyl so it became soft and pliable then stretched it whilst gently pushing it in to the grooves with a plastic spatula so the tape held it in place. As the vinyl cools it shrinks slightly making it nice and taut. Once this section by the ribs was stuck down I coated the foam and the back of the vinyl with upholstery adhesive. I then was able to heat up the vinyl and stretch it across the foam to the edges, allowing the glue to stick. At the edges I doubled it over and stapled it in place on the back side of the door card to stop the glue from being pulled away and to allow the vinyl to shrink back in to place leaving the surface taut.
Having attached the vinyl to the door card around the edges using about two hundred staples, (so glad I bought the battery operated staple gun) I went to task on the map pocket.
The map pocket door is held in place by creating a hinge with a flap at the bottom stapled in to the door card and the elastic strap. When you open the map pocket I noticed two things. Firstly I could see the white painted metal of the inside of my door. Secondly the door to the map pocket is just a flat board and there are no sides to it. So if you were to use it the maps or any other article could either fall out sideways or fall in to the bottom of the door.
Covering the first point, in a previous post by Jose he made up a backing board to go behind the door card. I thought this was a great idea. An improvement on what I had, which was nothing as you could see the inside of the door when you looked in the map pocket and better than the original which I am lead to believe was just a piece of vinyl glued to the metal of the door. Just as Jose did I made the board from a piece of 5mm MDF which I covered with a piece of black faux leather vinyl I bought from EBay. Using Jose’s design I bought some oval hole surrounds for the elastic to go through. I had to buy a pack of 50 so if anyone wants to have a go at this please contact me for some oval surrounds. New black elastic was attached and then I got some self drilling screws with some cup washers and fixed the board in to place against the metal door. Around the sides and base I also had to glue some of the faux leather to the metal of the door to cover the white paint work which was showing when you looked in the map pocket.
Covering the second point I decided to create some side fillets using some of the left over faux leather which I stapled in to place. Easy to make, look very effective and finish off the sides nicely.
I bought some Butyl tape and applied this to the metal of the door and fixed some of the waterproof foam I had used on the door cards to act as a membrane and sound proofer. I had also bought some new metal clips for fixing the door card to the door so replaced some damaged ones. This was possibly the hardest part of the job lining up the clips in the door card with the holes in the door.
Once the door card was on the door there is a section of the door card vinyl which goes up under the wood capping but I had noticed in pictures of other cars that there appeared to be a roll of foam under the vinyl so when the wooden cap pushes down on the top of the vinyl it pulls it taut. Not having the original I made a foam roll out of some of my carpet underlay and judged how thick the role should be. I placed this under the vinyl and stuck the vinyl to the top of the door metal with double sided tape. Now when the door capping is put in place it pushes the vinyl against the foam pad making it nice and taut.
Not a difficult job but very time consuming. It took the best part of a week to replace both front door cards in this way and make up the new map pockets. The cost was minimal about £25 for all the materials, £70 for the new door cards and a couple of tools like the staple gun which I will use elsewhere. I am now on to the rear door cards which I will do the same way.
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