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Door panel repair

8289ta

8289ta

Silver Member
Since I bought my car last year, I have always wondered why the top trim piece on the door panel was loose - the rail. So today, I took it apart to take a look. It seems some knucklehead went in there to change the power door lock, and broke everything on the way in. He ripped the rail out of the panel by the front of the door. He broke the trim piece around the door handle, and he ripped the window sweep off the rail in a few spots. I am going to use glue sticks and pop rivets to reattach the window sweep. I need to know if anyone has had any luck fixing the door panels. I was thinking of using a piece of cardboard and some fiberglass cloth and resin. I was also thinking of epoxying a screw onto the door rail next to the problem area. I saw that idea over on TGO and it seemed to be a good fix for the broken studs on the door rail, so it might work in this scenario also. Let me know your experiences with this. I am hoping to fix this up soon, as I am putting the car in a local show in a few weeks, and I still need to detail the car.
 
This is what I am talking about. The material looks like that stuff that covers the back of cheap furniture. It is some kind of fiberboard. I have to find a piece of it. I am going to fiberglass a repair over those spots, and then use a thin sheet of aluminum riveted and epoxied to the top to reinforce it. I'll let you know how it turns out. Has anyone repaired this already?

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Yep I can see why they do come apart like that if you are not careful and know how to remove them .. and overtime the material (board) gets fragile as well.

Only way to do it maybe glue (or rivit) a thin strip of metal along the top then drill the holes to reattach the plastic (black ones) at the top?

If you glue stuff try gorilla glue, never found anything better and it withstands heat etc as well.
 
I cut out a thin piece of aluminum to rivet to the top. I also epoxied pieces of fiberboard where they were missing. I just want to lay a little fiberglass cloth and resin across the top to make it a little more solid. The only thing I am worried about is catching the studs with the nuts. I tried it out with the aluminum and the nuts fit, but I hope the fiberglass doesn't make it too thick. I think I am over engineering it at this point and making it side impact protection as well.
 
I just finished the repair. I fiberglassed the top of the panel, and riveted the sweep back on. It is stronger than new. I will take some pics before I put it back on the car.
 
I would be interested in seeing the pictures. I have some weak spots on the door panels on both 82 cars.
 
No problem Kymmee - I will take some pics in a little while. The fiberglass definitely makes it very strong. I was going to rivet a piece of metal on top but it was a little overkill. The worst part is getting the door rail off without breaking any studs.
 
You can see the repair I made in these pics. The first and second pics show the pieces I epoxied in to repair the tear. I probably could have left it and it would have been fine. The rest show the fiberglass mesh I added to the top. It was very strong after that. You can also see the window sweep that I had to reattach with rivets. i cut off the plastic tabs and drilled holes for new rivets. I used the shortest I could get, and kept them away from the tabs that hold the rail to the door. The last pic shows the front of the panel, and how tight the rail is again. It used to curl up on the end and was loose.
 
That worked out really well, thanks for posting this as it will definitely help others as you break these so easily so an excellent way to repair them again!
 
No problem Jan - hope it helps others out. Another thing I noticed while I was in the door was that the rubber bumper that stops the window at the end of its travel was broken in 2 and sitting on the bottom of the door. I replaced it with this rubber door stop and screw and lock nut setup I made from Home Depot parts. I looked for a solution on TGO and guys are using a bike brake pad. But today is a holiday in the states, and no bike shops were open. This set up works good, and it stops the window at the right height. Without the little rubber stop, the window can get stuck under the screw that holds the outer sweep in and get chipped.
 
8289ta said:
You can see the repair I made in these pics. The first and second pics show the pieces I epoxied in to repair the tear. I probably could have left it and it would have been fine. The rest show the fiberglass mesh I added to the top. It was very strong after that. You can also see the window sweep that I had to reattach with rivets. i cut off the plastic tabs and drilled holes for new rivets. I used the shortest I could get, and kept them away from the tabs that hold the rail to the door. The last pic shows the front of the panel, and how tight the rail is again. It used to curl up on the end and was loose.
Click to expand...

Too bad the factory could not have made these stronger, Look like a great way to repair them.
 
That did turn out well. Thanks for the pictures. Someone on TGO used a similar method to re do their headliner and strengthed the weak points with mesh and fiberglass. I was gonna maybe try it this winter with my headliner.
 
I have to do the headliner in my 82. I am a little concerned about adding a lot of fiberglass and resin to the headliner, as I think it would get too heavy. I am going to use it sparingly, only where it is weak.
 
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