[Lil'John]

I've been jumping around like water in a hot skillet. So here we are doing door panels. All said and done, I'll have roughly $150 in all four door panels including buying glue, staples, and stapler.

It is basically a two step process:
1) Cut or reuse backing board
2) Cover with vinyl of choice

In my case, both my backing boards were junk in the rear but one was usable for a template.

For the backing board, I went to Home Depot and picked up some 1/4" board. The name escapes me right now. I chose 1/4" because I couldn't find any staples shorter than 1/4" at ACE or Home Depot

So here are two pictures of how I did the backing board. This was the easy part. Not shown is cutting in speaker holes. I screwed the step up and tried doing them after the fact individually. Yup, they didn't end up in the same location

First picture shows the stock backing board transferred over to the new backing board. I taped both backing boards together so I would only have to cut once Please note, there is a smooth and textured side on the backing board. The stock panel had the textured side covered with vinyl.

Second picture shows the cutting and drilling finished. I opted to leave the ashtrash out of my doors. I'm not a smoker and nobody is going to smoke in my 55 I drilled the door grab handle and window crank holes but used a jigsaw to cut out the door handle hole.

[Lil'John]

Next set of steps deal with gluing the vinyl to the face of the backing board.

First picture shows the jig I made up to hole the vinyl stretched out. Just some simple 1x4 screwed together.

Second picture shows the vinyl stretched out on the jig. I put some scrap ply underneath. At this point, I hosed down the backing board with glue and then the vinyl. I then tossed the backing board on the vinyl and threw some weight on top.

Third picture shows the weighted down product.

Still so easy a cave man could do it and not screw up

[Lil'John]

Next we have to start trimming the panel out of the jig and start pulling edges.

First picture shows the start of the cutting. I did a very drunk 1" cut around

Second picture shows my second attempt at cutting the square corners correctly. This was better than what I had tried earlier but still didn't come out right Glad this is not show quality truck.

Third picture shows the start of pulling. What I did was hosed an area with spray glue, pulled the vinyl like hell, and then stapled it on the back side of the board.

[Lil'John]

Now a little bit on how I did the corners. You really need to cut material out for corners. The challenge is you need to keep away from the very edge. Some times it worked for me... sometimes it didn't... Especially on the square corners.

Picture one shows the nice rounded corner. As you can probably tell, some of the cuts are a little too deep. But overall, the round corners didn't turn out too bad.

Picture two shows how to handle the door handle opening. While this isn't completely critical because of the bezel(see next post), I thought it was worth the extra effort over just straight cutting it out. You would do something similar for the speaker hole.

Picture three shows the finished door handle opening looks. After cutting the opening, I sprayed the board with glue, pulled like hell on the vinyl, and then stapled the hell out of it

[Lil'John]

And finally we have the finished panel and the partial install. What you should note is I showed making the driverside panel. But my installed picture is of the passenger side. The passenger side is what I finished first and is the "worst" of the two done so far.

I opted not to use the stock panel holders. I am going to use double sided tape in some places. I really wanted to use magnetic tape but could not find a reasonable price on some.

I still have some window issues I need to tie up before final install is done.

First picture shows the panel done except for the door handle and window crank holes cut into it. I simply cut them in.

Second picture shows the "finished" product. I'm still scratching my head on how to clean up the arm rests. Also I could REALLY use one more reasonable arm rest like the one showed. The other thing left to do is get the chrome door pull powdered black to match the metal bezels and window cranks

Third picture shows a close up of the metal bezels and window crank. The window cranks are some generic type off Summit. I had them powder coated to match the theme of my rig. The door handle bezels are also powder coated. You can also see the SOR window crank guards installed.

[Lil'John]

Last picture and some observations.

First, I used 3M Hi-Strength #90 Spray Adhesive. It kicked some major butt. I couldn't find the one they make "special" for upholstery. Bad news is it was ~$10 a bottle

Second, I used some generic foam ready vinyl. I got it at: Foam Backed and Pleated Vinyl - Gary's Upholstery Supplies I used black slate and bought two yards. Each door panel is roughly 2' tall and 3' wide. Their "rolls" are 52" wide. It was around $50 for it.

Third, I hinted at it early but I could not find a staple that was smaller than 1/4" nor a stapler that would shoot smaller than 1/4". I'm sure there was a specialty tool that would do it but I'd rather not spend $200+ on a one shot deal Nor did I want to spend hours on end cutting the staples back. Because of that, I used the 1/4" backing board. The end result is it may actually be a hair too thick. But it does work so I'll suffer with it This was around ~$5 a board if I recall right.

Lastly, invest in a LOT of blades for cutting. I went through about 2 blades for each of the panels. A nice sharp clean blade works wonders.

This last picture shows the corner issue I had. The panel I showed pictures of is a little better than this one.

[eperry0303]

Very nice post, thanks for sharing. I'm planning on doing a whole set for mine, and had in mind pretty much exactly what you did.

As far as sticking them to the door...You used double sided tape only, no "fasteners" per say?

[romegadave]

Very nice and informative....once again John your posts prove to be well worth visiting again and again in the preservation of our sainted pigs

[Lil'John]

Originally Posted by eperry0303

Very nice post, thanks for sharing. I'm planning on doing a whole set for mine, and had in mind pretty much exactly what you did.

As far as sticking them to the door...You used double sided tape only, no "fasteners" per say?

No real fasteners to speak of aside from the double sided tape. The double sided tape is mostly there to keep the panel from rattling around.

Keep in mind the only place on the door panel that should see any abuse is the armrests when closing the door. And since the armrests have their own 6mm bolts, the panel sees no force on it

[RHINO]

looks like masonite,,, i have been thinking of a heavy tan duck cloth lately with cargo pockets built in, just cause im kinda funky like that.

it looks great john, thanks for another great contribution.

[landcruisnman]

Great info. Thanks for sharing with all the other pigs in the farm.

[Lil'John]

I'll be the first to admit, these are far from great but they beat having nothing there. Actually, my only problem with how they turned out was the upper corners(aka what is visible on all of them)

In the ideal world, I'd do a split of vinyl and cloth. I'd use the cloth to make an accent layer and cover speakers

[JackA]

Looks nice. Glad the door handles went to good use.

[Lil'John]

Originally Posted by RHINO

looks like masonite,

I just purchased some more board for the front doors. HomeDepot called it Hardboard. It was $3.47 for a 2'x4' piece.

So that puts materials for the door at a whopping $14 plus $60ish for vinyl. The glue was around $10 a can. I think the staple gun was $15 plus another $3 for short staples. I think I spent another $3 on jigsaw blades. So, it appears to be a hair over $100 including purchase of stapler that I didn't have.

I used a 1" hole saw for the arm rest and window crank holes.

I spent another $35 on a 5" hole saw for speakers. I chose this route because I can't cut good round holes with a jigsaw

So out of pocket, under $150 and I have "new" door panels

[Lil'John]

Blasted DB reset.

The spray glue was actually $20 a can. But still overall, a good investment for a new lease on life for your interior