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Door Panel Help

Z

Zora1

Guest
My carpet is beginning to separate from the door panels right where the top of the carpet meets the bottom of the plastic door panel. This happened shortly after I bought the car in Texas as I had no carport or garage for almost a year. (I did keep a cover on it, and now have it garaged.) I believe it got so hot, that the bottom edge of the door panel began to curl and bend. Has anyone ever tried to get this plastic to lay back down, and what type of glue do I use on the carpet. I was thinking of trying to heat the panels just enought to remove the curl. I hate to spend $600-700 just to buy new panels, when the rest of them are in good shape. Any ideas?? :confused
 
Carpet

I've used a hot glue gun to stick carpet which can work well if you're real careful. Looks like that's what the factroy uses as well.

A safer bet is a general purpose glue that is designed for fabrics but can be used on non-porous surfaces like the plastic panels in Corvettes.

I don't know how well heating up the panels would work but if you've nothing to lose you caould have a go before spending on new ones.

Regards, Malc. www.mm-2000.co.uk/corvette/
 
If all else fails,

Keep an eye out for door panels on ebay!

Not kidding, changed the panels out in my '91 to all black for around $300.00 + shipping. Like you, I didn't want to come off $700-800.00. And I'm very happy with the results!

Go to ebay (register if you're not already) and go to ebay motors. Type in "corvette door panel(s)" and keep watching for a few weeks until you see what you want!
 
Definitely use a glue gun. I had to replace my driver's door panel (it was aftermarket and broken) but the carpet was still good. The used replacement I bought had bad carpet, so I swapped them. Tried 3M's carpet adhesive for non-porous surfaces and it didn't hold well (the car's interior just gets too hot, as you mentioned). Used a glue gun (hi-temp, NOT the low-temp crafter's gun) and the carpet is fine. Also, you need to staple the edges down (there's a vinyl strip on mine that covers them) and even my heavy-duty staple gun had problems driving them far enough into the plastic.

Be careful heating the door panel itself with a heat gun - the plastic will start to warp and shrink, which is not what you want...

Another source besides eBay is the Classifieds section of www.corvetteforum.com (Sorry, Rob!). While the signal:noise ratio of the message boards is much worse than here, their for-sale section is MUCH more active. I got my replacement door panel for $50 + shipping.
[RICHR]
 
Thanks for the ideas. I plan to try to fix them first. If that doesn't work, then I'll look to replace them. One question, how do you staple into metal?? And two, what are you stapling, the plastic panel or the carpet??
 

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