I have a small tear on the black vynal door panel just below the arm rest. Can anyone recommend a patch kit?

 

Is it black or another color?

Well, there are colored adhesive patches and things like that you can buy off ebay and heat-gun adhere. I haven't tried them. If it's black that might be the quickest and easiest ..and cheapest way to deal with it. Or even some black electrical tape if it's small and you don't really want a pro-looking repair.

This kit below may or may not work for your tear because the vinyl on the door panel might be on the softer side. But then again, I don't know why it wouldn't work. Years ago I bought that same vinyl repair kit (see link below), for repairing a very expensive armrest on a cadillac with a red interior ..that became cracked in a couple places. The results turned out great and lasted many years in a sunny environment. In my case the corner of the armrest vinyl had broken out so I had to re-mold quite a large area. The kit includes different leather-like patterns and you mix up your liquid vinyl color (to match), apply it to the vinyl, cover with the leather grain sheet that matches your repair area. Then you vulcanize the vinyl by sliding the flat (hot) iron tip over the leather pattern sheet. That hardens the vinyl. Since my repair area was somewhat larger than most, I ended up 'dusting' the corner of the armrest with some red interior color I had ..using a touch-up spray gun. If a person was looking right at it you could tell it was repaired, but the casual observer getting in or out never really noticed it. It looked far better than when it was cracked and white foam was protruding through. But if your tear is black in color, that gives you options. You might be able to find the same kit cheaper somewhere else, maybe amazon or ebay. Back in the day I bought mine from J.C. Whitney (remember them??!).
https://www.eastwood.com/vinyl-and-d...ir-system.html

Ultimately if you want a completely invisible repair, you'll probably need to buy a replacement door panel. But if the tear is in an inconspicuous location and you don't mind giving something a try, go to ebay (or Amazon), and type in 'vinyl repair' or 'leather repair' a lot of different style of repair kits will show up. Take a look and see if any fits your needs. Best of luck. Let us know what you did and how it turned out.

 

Thanks for your post. I’ve had this on back burner for 13 years. I’m just now getting to it as the interior is in pretty good shape. I’ve seen the kits and will give one a try. I’ll post updates with pictures along the way.

 

Yeah, ..and to start things off, maybe get a piece of scrap vinyl and practice first so you get a hang of it. That's what I did. Or if you don't like the look, try another kit/system. You can always buy a used door panel somewhere (or new) if you don't like how it turns out. Or if the location is just right, you can get creative and cover the tear with a piece of polished stainless steel of some shape and have it enscribed with a "B-M Series II" (with a matching emblem on the other door panel), and let people know it was the rare Bill Mitchell Series (or something along those lines, lol)

Let us know how it turns out..

 

that’s hilarious. Don’t put it past me to do something like that. As a kid my mom would buy the cheap clothes from Kmart and sow OP on them (Ocean Pacific)

 

LOL,

Couple yrs ago, same thing: Our daughter wanted to buy a certain name-brand trendy winter coat that was basically a $20 China plain-jane coat marked up to $200 because it had a certain designer patch sewn on it (wasn't even embroidered to the jacket ..it was just a sew-on patch!!). I suggested she either use her own money, or go buy a cheap, or even better quality jacket at Walmart or Goodwill and I'd buy the designer patch on ebay for $5 and sew it on myself ...her friends wouldn't know. I checked and, yeah, you CAN buy that designer patch on ebay for like $5. A week later she (predictably) decided she didn't like those coats anyway.