Can someone tell me how to remove the the Camaro upper door panel? You know, the soft vinyl padded part just below the window.
The reason I ask is because I've located light gray perforated leather virtually identical to light gray inserts on my 35th LE seats and would like to have the upper door panel reupolstered in it. But for the life of me, I cannot figure out how to get the door panel off.
Thanks.
Posted by HTWLSS (Member # 117) on :
You'll need to pull the whole door panel. Once you do that, you'll see that the vinyl part is held on by plastic pieces that have been melted at the ends to hold the pad in place (I don't know what this process is called). When we looked into replacing our gray vinyl with white, a local automotive upholstery shop said they could get them apart, but they would be cutting the plastic studs and replacing them with screws.
Once you have it off, you'll see what I mean about the melted plastic stud thingies.
Posted by SSilver02 (Member # 967) on :
It's called "heat staking". Used to heat stake switches onto front panel PC boards at work many, many moons ago. Shove the plastic peg through the hole, then stick a hot soldering iron type contraption on it until it looked like a pancake, et voila! It may be possible that GM has some left over or their supplier. Screws would be easier to come by, though.
Posted by HTWLSS (Member # 117) on :
quote:Originally posted by SSilver02: It's called "heat staking".
Thank you! (I knew there had to be an official term for it.)
Posted by JCORPANY_F02_1505 (Member # 579) on :
Teri,
Great detail on the door panel removal process. I think it will look much better with the gray leater instead of the ugly vinyl.
By chance do you have some pics you could share of the finished product from when Steve changed out your door panels?
Thanks again for the info.
John
Posted by HTWLSS (Member # 117) on :
Actually, we decided not to tear apart the extra set of door panels we bought to replace the gray vinyl with white. What we did instead was clean the vinyl well and Steve masked it off and sprayed it with white vinyl dye. It turned out pretty well and has held up so far. We figured it would be easier to spend $10 on vinyl paint/dye than $75/door panel to recover it. If it lasts, great. If not, we're only out a few bucks and we can recover it down the road if we want to. For what you want to do, (other than take an ice pick to your vinyl to make some holes), it sounds like recovering is your only choice. The shop that we asked about doing it is Classic Soft Trim. They have an installation center near us. There's a locator on their website.
I'm not sure if anyone took pics of our door panels in Bowling Green. Dennis Barker's wife, of Berger Chevrolet, had white vinyl on her door panels, too. It looked like they had a bit of trouble tucking all the material in to look like it was stock.
If I remember, I'll try and take some for you of ours this weekend.
