Plus 2 Door card restoration
Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2024 5:19 pm
Hey all, just wanted to see if anybody who's been there and done that has any advice for this.
Now that the car is pretty much in the realm of solid operability and the interiour is mostly done, I've finally remembered the door cards I removed eight years ago and stuck in a closet. I'm quite used to having yellow glassfibre with various holes in it next to me when I drive!
Anyway, here's the situation. The vinyl coverings are in surprisingly decent shape all things considered (and would be a better match for the good surviving seat-coverings than would something new), but the carpet inserts are not- they've faded from black to dull tan and no longer feel soft, no doubt the result of decades of UV-exposure here in the hot sunny USA, including decades spent either on a trailer or in a yard (new inserts would be perfect here, since the floor-carpets are all new)
The fibreboard or whatever it is that the backing boards are made of (better than cardboard, but not quite masonite?) is getting a little soft and wavy around the edges.
On one of the cards I've removed all the staples and started looking under the covering and it appears that the backing boards were rather liberally painted with a lot of contact-cement and everything is stuck down pretty well- when I try to unstick the covering, it just peels the top layer of the board away with it. I've also noticed a lot of foam padding that has reduced to dust. Thankfully the white foam in the basketweave section is still nice and full, but the darker stuff used above that section and up into the windowsill is all dust. I think I have some thin foam that I can use in those areas, assuming that I can get it all apart without destroying the covering.
Before I started taking one apart my thought was that I could remove the covering from the backing boards, have an upholsterer sew-in some new carpet inserts, make new backing boards, glue & staple it all together and Bob's yer proverbial uncle.
The questions I have:
1. Any suggestion for getting the old contact cement (and fibreboard remnants) off the back of the coverings without damaging the coverings? Doesn't have to be hermetically clean, just good enough to not have any weird bulges and to allow new cement to do its job. The old cement seems very tough stuff. Maybe experiment carefully with some solvents?
2. Any suggestions for a material from which to make new backing boards, preferably something available in the USA? I'm presuming that the exact original stuff isn't but haven't researched it yet. It needs to be the right thickness, able to accept the curve of the door, and able to hold both contact cement and staples. The original stuff actually seems just about perfect for all that criteria, but is there another material just as good or better?
3. Anything at all (materials, methods, whatever) that I haven't considered but should? Any general suggestions?
4. Am I over- or under-thinking any of this?
Now that the car is pretty much in the realm of solid operability and the interiour is mostly done, I've finally remembered the door cards I removed eight years ago and stuck in a closet. I'm quite used to having yellow glassfibre with various holes in it next to me when I drive!
Anyway, here's the situation. The vinyl coverings are in surprisingly decent shape all things considered (and would be a better match for the good surviving seat-coverings than would something new), but the carpet inserts are not- they've faded from black to dull tan and no longer feel soft, no doubt the result of decades of UV-exposure here in the hot sunny USA, including decades spent either on a trailer or in a yard (new inserts would be perfect here, since the floor-carpets are all new)
The fibreboard or whatever it is that the backing boards are made of (better than cardboard, but not quite masonite?) is getting a little soft and wavy around the edges.
On one of the cards I've removed all the staples and started looking under the covering and it appears that the backing boards were rather liberally painted with a lot of contact-cement and everything is stuck down pretty well- when I try to unstick the covering, it just peels the top layer of the board away with it. I've also noticed a lot of foam padding that has reduced to dust. Thankfully the white foam in the basketweave section is still nice and full, but the darker stuff used above that section and up into the windowsill is all dust. I think I have some thin foam that I can use in those areas, assuming that I can get it all apart without destroying the covering.
Before I started taking one apart my thought was that I could remove the covering from the backing boards, have an upholsterer sew-in some new carpet inserts, make new backing boards, glue & staple it all together and Bob's yer proverbial uncle.
The questions I have:
1. Any suggestion for getting the old contact cement (and fibreboard remnants) off the back of the coverings without damaging the coverings? Doesn't have to be hermetically clean, just good enough to not have any weird bulges and to allow new cement to do its job. The old cement seems very tough stuff. Maybe experiment carefully with some solvents?
2. Any suggestions for a material from which to make new backing boards, preferably something available in the USA? I'm presuming that the exact original stuff isn't but haven't researched it yet. It needs to be the right thickness, able to accept the curve of the door, and able to hold both contact cement and staples. The original stuff actually seems just about perfect for all that criteria, but is there another material just as good or better?
3. Anything at all (materials, methods, whatever) that I haven't considered but should? Any general suggestions?
4. Am I over- or under-thinking any of this?