Inner window felt install
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Joined: Jul 2011
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From: NW Michigan
Inner window felt install
Just wanted to pass this along as I puzzled over this one and combed the forum looking for the best solution. I have my '80 door panels off doing a bunch of interior work and wanted to replace inner felt strips "while I'm at it...". Obviously GM had no intention of anyone ever doing this kind of work; those are some mean staples. Rather than try to use vendor-bought staples and get them back through the original holes (which would have entailed drilling small holes in the felt strip anyway), I went with 1/8" aluminum pop rivets. My passenger side was a bit of trial and error, but the driver side went well. (I did the driver side second knowing I would see it more often! 
)
I used 5 rivets and my tips are:
-be sure your felt strip and door card are clamped together tight and the door card metal is nice and flat at that point to give the rivet plenty of purchase.
-after drilling use a Dremel to grind down smooth the back side of the metal strip on the door card to insure the rivet seats well
It's not factory correct, but seems fairly sturdy and simple (at least on door #2). As usual, I've now got experience in a task I will likely never do again...
)I used 5 rivets and my tips are:
-be sure your felt strip and door card are clamped together tight and the door card metal is nice and flat at that point to give the rivet plenty of purchase.
-after drilling use a Dremel to grind down smooth the back side of the metal strip on the door card to insure the rivet seats well
It's not factory correct, but seems fairly sturdy and simple (at least on door #2). As usual, I've now got experience in a task I will likely never do again...
Last edited by SciVette; Dec 7, 2014 at 01:54 AM.
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I decided to use pop rivits as well. A dab of black paint on the heads help make them less obvious.
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Joined: Apr 2023
Posts: 52
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From: Fountain Inn, SC
After checking out all the ideas on this....I think I'll try the #4 x 3/8 screw idea. As far as seeing the method used, it'll be hidden since it faces the glass anyway. Now to go pry those staples and remove the old felts...
Last edited by JerRollin; Today at 07:16 AM.
