07-22-2011, 06:13 AM
My door panels like many others were shot because of heat , age and water from inside the door.
I needed to replace mine , at the time ( about 7 yrs ago ) I didn't have the money it takes to buy the new panels. So I took mine apart and rebuilt them myself.
Paying close attention to what the old panel was like , holes and attachmnt points , I proceeded to get the materials to replace the hard backing and do a self rebuild.
The old units had fiberboard for backer , I wanted something better. So i went out and purchased enough 1/8 hard board mansonite and made exact copies of what i took out. Then I proceeded to cut , drill and reassemble , clean the carpet and redye everything
I took me a several hrs but the end result was a door panel just as good as the factors unit shipped with the car.
I redid mine for I believe it was $30.00 in material and about 6 hrs labor.
My thinking was , my panels were so bad I had nothing to lose so why not try doing them myself.
At that time I had no camera , so no progress pic's but I can take some of the completed units now .let me know.
It's amazing how industrious we can be when were broke, poor or have no money to spare.
I needed to replace mine , at the time ( about 7 yrs ago ) I didn't have the money it takes to buy the new panels. So I took mine apart and rebuilt them myself.
Paying close attention to what the old panel was like , holes and attachmnt points , I proceeded to get the materials to replace the hard backing and do a self rebuild.
The old units had fiberboard for backer , I wanted something better. So i went out and purchased enough 1/8 hard board mansonite and made exact copies of what i took out. Then I proceeded to cut , drill and reassemble , clean the carpet and redye everything
I took me a several hrs but the end result was a door panel just as good as the factors unit shipped with the car.
I redid mine for I believe it was $30.00 in material and about 6 hrs labor.
My thinking was , my panels were so bad I had nothing to lose so why not try doing them myself.
At that time I had no camera , so no progress pic's but I can take some of the completed units now .let me know.
It's amazing how industrious we can be when were broke, poor or have no money to spare.