Recovered Lower Door Panel (PICS) Tutorial/Write Up/How to
 

What's up corvette forum. I did this mod over the winter and am just now getting to the write up. Through searching I was able to find a few other people that have done this but I always feel like everyone does things just a little differently and when I am searching for mods I love being able to find a TON of info on the subject, so this is mostly for those considering something like this.
Since I am doing this for someone who might want to tackle this mod themselves, I will be going into a lot of detail and description. Just warning you upfront it could get long. There will be lots of pics along the way if you don't like reading :thumbs: Here we go...

If you can't tell from the title, this thread will be outlining the process I used to recover the lower portion of the door panels with Alcantara. It involves seperating the panel pieces, recovering the lower, and reassembly. I would give this mod a moderate difficulty level. Certainly not easy to do but not all that involved either. If you are mechanically handy it should be no problem. My upholstery background spans to recovering a pool table in high school so I am no pro and did just fine.

What is Alcantara? By now I am sure everyone has started to see the trend of having a "suede" material featured on the interior of high end luxury cars right? Well suede is an animal product (backside of leather) and it usually isn't used for automotive purposes due to lack of durability. It is fragile and gets dirty easily. Micro suede or ultra suede refers to a synthetic material made to mimic the properties of real suede like the feel and texture. Alcantara is a brand of micro suede that is the standard for automotive use for most car manufacturers. It is expensive at $100 a yard and is very durable and UV resistant. I figured if it is good enough for Lamborghini then it will work for my C5. Here's some Alcantara porn featured in the cockpit of the Lamborghini Reventon:
http://www.carbodydesign.com/archive...nton-17-lg.jpg

Step one would be to take of the trim panels. I quick search will yield many results for this process so I won't get into it. Actually here you go, first few pics is what you need: http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-g...w-problem.html
Ok now take the styrofoam off the back of the trim panels too.
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0322.jpg
Here comes the commitment to the mod, seperating the two halves. If you look along the backside of the trim panel you will see where the panels have been plastic welded together. They look like...
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0325.jpg
You will need to break all the welds to get the panels apart. I used a small butane torch and a pry tool and just heated up the plastic until it melted just a little. Once it was in that state gentle prying with the tool helped to push the two pieces apart. Ready for a sweet action shot...
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0329.jpg
Oh hell yeah. Zoom in on that torch action.
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0330.jpg
Here you can see that the plastic isn't drippy and melted, but if you look closely at the weld I am working on you will see that the plastic becomes shiny right before it melts away. Once it gets shiny then the prying takes place. It only takes a few seconds of heat to get it there and the separation goes really fast once you get the hang of it.
Pry apart all the welds, pull the speaker grill off, and bam... two separate pieces. Like I said before, no going back after this step, all in. I safely stored the upper halves in a closet because you won't need them for a while and the work space will get messy and you wouldn't want to risk potential damage. I grabbed them here and there for little stuff like test fitting but I put them away safely when not directly working with them.
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0331.jpg
Next I peeled the vinyl off of the piece and discarded. You may notice a layer of foam is left behind, sometimes it comes off with the vinyl, sometimes not. Here is a pic with factory vinyl removed.
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0332.jpg
To get the foam off the panel I sanded it with 80 grit on a 6" DA. It got messy but sanded off fairly quickly. I guess I should note here that it isn't 100% necessary to remove the old covering. You could just glue your new material right over the old stuff if you wanted to. The reason I did it this way was to insure good fitment with my speaker grille and reflector light/cover. If you just cover the old vinyl you are adding thickness to the piece and fit could go south. By first removing the old then applying the new I maintained the factory fit of the grille and such. Again, not sure that this step needs to be done but it seemed like the right way to do it to me, so that's what I did. Here is the piece with foam removed.
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0333.jpg
Time for some Alcantara action, yay. I bought mine from gulf fabrics (i'd throw you a link but I think that is against the rules, get your google on) and they have two blacks to choose from. One is a jet black and the other is what I got. It is perhaps more of a charcoal but it is definitely an OEM looking color which is exactly what I wanted. You also have two choices for type, panel fabric and seat fabric. Go with panel because it is thinner and easier to work with plus I think the seat stuff is perforated.
I forget the dimensions of a yard of this fabric but I want to say 3 feet by 5 feet. I know it is close to that but you would have to call them to verify (I know it is between 52 and 60 inches) Anyway you could get by with a yard of it for doing both door panels and you should be fine. I was doing several pieces so I had a few yards to work with so lack of material was not an issue.
You want to cut a piece that is WAY oversized compared to the panel you are covering. You can always trim away excess but if the piece is too small you are screwed. At this price it is a good idea not to mess up and cut a piece too small. Here is my fabric draped over the panel
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0336.jpg

This next part is going to be more self taught and hard to explain. I used 3M Super 90 adhessive and sprayed down the front of the piece. Next I laid the fabric over it and smoothed it out with my hands. This works for the majority of the panel but up near the front I sprayed the adhesive into a cup and brushed it on in small areas at a time. Up by the speaker is the most challenging part.
Then after the surface was bonded I cut flaps by the edges and used hot glue to fold them over. Hard to explain but you will get the feel for it and here's a few shots to better understand the process
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0339.jpg
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0337.jpg

And when I finished up I had a piece that looked something like this
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0338.jpg

Everything is looking good... so far. Now back to reuniting the two pieces together. This is another area where methods can be different depending on who is doing it. Some people use the existing plastic nubs left over from the separation and simply heat them up again to "re weld" the two halves back together. Some people glue them back together but I couldn't see how you could effectively clamp the two pieces tight without doing damage to the newly covered lower. I wanted to make sure they NEVER came apart again and were actually stronger than factory so here's what I did...

There will be nubs of plastic after you break the two apart and they look like...
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0335.jpg

I sanded them smooth so that they were flat but yet I could still see where they once were. Sorry for the reused pic
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0337.jpg

On the other piece that I haven't used in awhile (upper half) I cleaned the holes up a bit and ran a drill bit through them to make them round again. This step will vary depending on how much damage was done while separating the two halves.
Now it is going to get tedious. I went to Home depot and looked at their bolt and fastener selection but couldn't find anything that I wanted so I decided to make my own hardware. I'm handy, why not.
I took a bolt and a washer like so...
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0342.jpg

Then I welded them together...
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0343.jpg

Next I ground off the weld so it was flat. I was left with a threaded stud that can be glued to the panel. (yes I am going somewhere with this) I made over 20 of these bad boys and got fairly fast at it.
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0340.jpg

I felt like I should have been able to buy something like this fairly easily but the hardware store was no help. If anyone has a source for something like this, post up. Nothing like custom hardware and it wasn't too bad making them all.
After I had a whole gang of them I glued them along the lower trim panel piece and the locations of the pre existing plastic nubs. Basically everywhere that the factory had a weld, I now had a threaded stud.
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0346.jpg
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0327.jpg

If you get into this project you will find that the corners a bit different and for those I just used a bolt and cut the head off and glued the threaded end where I needed. This pic will make sense if you do this project.
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0345.jpg

So now with all my threaded studs in place you can see that I have transformed the panel from a "one time fuse together" piece to a "two separate bolt together" system. Two pieces that can be bolted together and taken apart. This worked great for dry fitting and I could have been done but I wanted extra integrity. I glued the two halves back together using windshield urethane as i have found it to be very strong, yet somewhat flexible for when I need to remove the door panel in the future. The threaded studs acted as my "clamps" for the drying process and worked very well. I ran a bead along the edge and simply bolted them together, then set it and forget it. I cam back a day later to super strong trim panels that were ready for installation.
Here are some gluing shots. You can see that the panel is bolted together and the bead of urethane is applied and squirting out the sides as the two halves were tightened down. Be very careful not to go overboard on the urethane and have it seep out to the font of the panel. That would ruin your day.
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0347.jpg

And then just smoothing the excess over with my finger
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0348.jpg

Reinstall the speaker grille, the reflector, and then the trim panels to the door and you are done. I guess that means time for finished pics...
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0526.jpg
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0533.jpg

I also did some other interior pieces as well...
A pillars
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0537.jpg
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0536.jpg

Knee bolster
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0527.jpg

Center console arm rest
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0530.jpg

Door jamb/sill trim
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0528.jpg

Sub box and storage compartments
http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/v...l/IMG_0532.jpg

I think that's all I got, what do you think? Overall I think that the project went really well and I don't think there are too many things that I would do differently if I were to do it again. It is a subtle mod that brings the interior quality up a bit. My favorite piece I did was the center console arm rest, I enjoy that supple feel every time I drive the car.
Thanks to those that went before me and showed me it could be done. Hopefully I have added to the content for this mod and anyone wanting to give it a go should have all the tools they need to get the job done.
If I left anything out please post up with questions or comments and hopefully this will help someone in the future. Thanks for reading... and to all the Playboy subscribers, thanks for "reading" :thumbs:

Mark

Good job. Thank You for posting!

Looks like you did a really good job. Thanks for the tutorial. You made it look very simple.:cheers:

Very nice! Excellent write-up. :thumbs:

Sweeet...I was going to tackle this but ended up just re-dying everything in my interior. You did a really great job.

Nice work! Now you need to do the glove box to match the knee bolster. :cheers:

Very nice :thumbs:

Very nice indeed !! You did a great job....now if you could only show us how to recover the top half of the door panel..:thumbs:

Very nice job you did on those pieces. Thanks for detailing the process you used.

Great job!...:thumbs:

Nice work....great write up :cool:

wow... that is awesome...

Nice job! Great write-up! :thumbs: The idea of making it a bolt together was very cool! :cool: Gulf Fabrics was the same place I got my alcantara as well when I did mine. :flag:

Hi Mark,
Terrific job you did. Then again good body techs are very methodical in their work.Did you ever change your differential fluid as we discussed earlier in the year?
Again a great job.
robsc501

Excellent job thanks for sharing:thumbs:

Thanks. You should PM a few pics of your interior and what products you used. Sounds interesting and I would love to see how it turned out.

That was the plan but the weather got too nice on me and I just wanted to drive it. I have the material and I bought the extra glove box too so I am set to tackle it this winter.

Hahaha ya I know. That part is easy...
Step 1. Send trim panel to Apsis
Step 2. Open wallet
That is a crazy hard area to do because of all the contours and such and it would require multiple pieces sewn together. Apsis does amazing work and that part should be left to the pro's.

Man that looks really good, I am saving this thread so I can go back later and do this myself.... Once again Great Job......:thumbs:

Very nice work. :thumbs:

Nice...when I did mine I opted to Velcro the upper and lower panels...it worked great, and I can remove just the bottom if I really want to...I used an old woodburning iron to soften the plastic, then cleaned up with a Dremel disc. Got my alcantara on the NSX forum for $60...1 yard...have lots left over after careful measuring and cutting.:thumbs:

Very nice man, very nice