1981 Camaro Z28

[DynoDave]

The holes are through the old plastic? If so, probably smart of you to reuse as many as you can. It may not like having new holes poked into it.

[MP81]

Yup - they go through the vinyl wrapping, and the plastic. Some (you can see the X's or checkmarks at the bottom of the plastic where I marked good and bad locations) had just broke the plastic apart completely, so those won't be reused. The ones that are, I made sure to tape over both sides, and then poke the holes through. I'll just need to drill matching holes on the new felt.

[DynoDave]

I wonder if you could back that entire lower lip with something thin, like a strip of termite shield (thin metal), to reinforce the good holes, and span the bad providing a new place for the strip to anchor in those bad spots?

[MP81]

I probably could, though it seems like the Gorilla tape is doing exactly what I needed it to. From what I've read in the description, the new door panels come with metal top rolls instead of plastic - that would have been nice!

[MP81]

New (left/bottom) vs old felts - the old one really wasn't in bad shape, but did have a section of the base missing that I don't think really affected the function at all.



All installed! Used some headliner/carpet adhesive that I had to stick the vinyl wrapping back down on top of the plastic where it was (mostly) stuck before, just to make sure it stayed where it was supposed to. I'm glad I did, because this is a pain in the ass, and I didn't need another thing to worry about.




So that's one down, one to go - hopefully the second door panel is a little quicker, as I have a better idea how to attack each element.

[DynoDave]

Nicely done. Those do all kinds of good things...help hold the glass, weep debris out of the doors, prevent excess water entry....well worth doing.

[MP81]

Yup, they definitely serve a function, though the car also has inner felt guides just below these that do a good job of holding the windows in place, so even without these, there's some support. But having these will absolutely help assist those. The biggest improvement is going to be in the visual department, especially on the driver side.

The passenger side felt was still flexible and did it's job, but as you'll see (whenever I get to it - hopefully tomorrow), the driver side felt is rock hard and snaps off after you've applied a lot of pressure to try and flex it. As a result, most of it is missing anyway. So that's the one that really needed to be replaced. I'll have a lot more top access to the staples on that one though, since there's nothing in the way!

[MP81]

Started on the driver's door panel very briefly yesterday (just getting the main layer of tape on the bottom of the top roll), but really got to work on it today.

This was what I was starting with today, and pretty obvious why this side needed to be replaced. What little was left of the "upright" felt is rock hard:



Needless to say: it went much quicker and was far easier, as I had a plan of attack based on my knowledge of the other side. What also helped is that the majority of the staples had broken the plastic away and were therefore not attached to the top roll - only the vinyl wrapping. Much easier to bend those staple legs out!

Even trying to get the staples out that were loose led to the base just breaking and crumbling apart.




All removed:


New (left/bottom) vs old (right/top). Pretty obvious why this needs replacement.



Top flange reinforced, and vinyl wrapping re-stuck down like it should be

[DynoDave]

The second one is always easier!

[MP81]

At least on the removal of the old felt and reinforcing of the whole area, I certainly would say so. Hoping the installation goes just as well.

I need to get a couple extra door clips - one of the metal ones and two of the plastic ones - before I reinstall the driver side panel back on the car.

They do come in singles, on Summit or Jegs, but I'll need a larger order to not pay $9 shipping on a $1.00 clip. I can also buy the full set of door panel clips and screws for not a lot more (about $15) - but that includes a lot more than I need.

My brother has an upcoming order at Summit (pending them running their $XX off $XXX sale they've had literally up until the day he was going to make a purchase), so I'll throw the singles on with those.

[MP81]

Boy this second door took seemingly no time at all - wayyyy easier and quicker to do this one...especially once I realized I didn't need to stand the door panel up to drill the holes...just as easily done with it flat on the table, as the flat of the felt base is basically horizontal, haha.

I used a couple less staples on this side, but that more-so relates to the where/how many bad sections of plastic there were that I knew wouldn't be good to staple into. I had larger sections on this one, but they seemed to be dispersed between where staples would be going anyway (I was shooting for one every six inches or so), whereas the other panel, while in better shape, needed staples closer than the ~6" to avoid some bad sections.

This is going to look significantly better in-car!

[MP81]

Fixed (hopefully) the LH door handle escutcheon, which has sat on the workbench since I got the car (the broken part, where the screw holds it on, has stayed attached to the car). The broken piece had a very tight fit, thankfully, so the superglue has a lot of surface area to make use of.





Will be nice not to have a big open hole behind the door handle.

[DynoDave]

You'll feel good about this work every time you open that door to get out.

[MP81]

I absolutely can't wait to see how it all looks.

I was searching for the one missing metal clip, just in the event it had fallen on the floor or into the door itself - nope, the bottom of the door only contained most of the original inner felt.

So I need to get one of those and a couple plastic ones before this door panel goes back on - I also need to get a roll of butyl tape to put the paper vapor barrier (which I gorilla taped back together, because of course I did) back on. It's been sitting in the garage since I removed it to do the outer sweep back in 2018, as I forgot to put it back on (the old butyl on the left door wasn't sticky anymore anyway).

[MP81]

Switching gears a good bit (awaiting a roll of butyl tape to arrive, and then need to figure out what I want to do regarding the clips I need), I focused on the trunk of the car. I have new weatherstripping in the basement for the trunk, and I would like to install that, as the current (factory) weatherstrip could use replacing. It's not in terrible shape, but it also is a shape, so there's probably not a perfect seal around it anymore. The trunk floor is completely solid, but the rear of the underside of the trunk lid is not - but that's another task.

Before going fully into the weatherstrip replacement, I wanted to get the trunk strut on, since I know the trunk fits how it should right now, just in case it caused any issues.

The trunk as it sat at the beginning - with the requisite broom handle keeping the trunk lid open:


Some closer shots of the current weatherstripping - the rear section doesn't look too great, and the front section doesn't look like it's even fully in the channel:



Trunk strut installed - no more broom handle!