Reviving tired looking door panels

[CapriGT]

My '79 Capri has the plastic door panels and after 26 year they look kinda shabby. They appear to be dried out and gouged. Has anyone repaired these? I thought about sanding them but as dry as they look that may take off more than I want to.

[nater200]

yeah you can refurbish them. what i did was sanded off ALL of the sun rot and when it was done i sprayed it with truck bedliner to put the texture back on the flat parts. then i painted them flat black to match th rest of my interior. i will try to post pics soon.

[Sellis1012]

Funny you should mention it! I am in the middle of doing my 79 Cobra door panels. Yes, sanding will take off too much. You will lose the texture. I suppose bedliner spray would give you texture, but not the original look. I found a set of good panels that were the wrong color. I used a hot knife to get the chrome off that is behind the door insert. Once painted I melted the tabs back down. Tricky though. I used a special tool to get the chrome off the top of the door panel. I have painted one with vinyl spray from SEM after pulling all the metal off. I bought a yard of carpet that matches my new interior carpet to cut for the door panels. I have one done except for the carpet and it looks new. The Columbus Fall Swap Meet is coming up. Tell me the color of yours and I'll keep an eye out.

[gsxdave]

My 79 panels were sun baked pretty well too. I simply gave them a quick wash with laquer thinner (gunwash) to put a "tooth" in the old finish and used a dupont (or SEM) interior dye that was quite close, colourwise. I wasn't aware of the bedliner trick to replace the grain, that's a good idea. My panels look fine from a foot, which is what I wanted. BTW, don't get too liberal with the thinner, it will eventually 'soften' the plastic panel.

[sk83r005]

I'll have to look into this more, but my mom does arts and crafts and she buys this unique plastic paint. It comes in tons of colors. When she uses it she actually attempts to get the same crinkle effect as with the door panels. She has nice little trick that works really well. Se usually blow dries the paint immediately after application and it crinkles the paint and tends to create an extremely similar effect. I'll try to get the brand of the paint she uses. By the way, I'm going to attempt this method on a crappy interior piece I have laying around. I'll post some pics of the result if I get around to it anytime soon. :lol:

[sk83r005]

I'll have to look into this more, but my mom does arts and crafts and she buys this unique plastic paint. It comes in tons of colors. When she uses it she actually attempts to get the same crinkle effect as with the door panels. She has nice little trick that works really well. Se usually blow dries the paint immediately after application and it crinkles the paint and tends to create an extremely similar effect. I'll try to get the brand of the paint she uses. By the way, I'm going to attempt this method on a crappy interior piece I have laying around. I'll post some pics of the result if I get around to it anytime soon. :lol:

[negusm]

I'll have to look into this more, but my mom does arts and crafts and she buys this unique plastic paint. It comes in tons of colors. When she uses it she actually attempts to get the same crinkle effect as with the door panels. She has nice little trick that works really well. Se usually blow dries the paint immediately after application and it crinkles the paint and tends to create an extremely similar effect. I'll try to get the brand of the paint she uses. By the way, I'm going to attempt this method on a crappy interior piece I have laying around. I'll post some pics of the result if I get around to it anytime soon. :lol:

Yes, please do! I would love to see the results. The "blow" effect sounds promising! I tried SEM textured paint and it just makes it grainy, not really "textured".

[negusm]

I'll have to look into this more, but my mom does arts and crafts and she buys this unique plastic paint. It comes in tons of colors. When she uses it she actually attempts to get the same crinkle effect as with the door panels. She has nice little trick that works really well. Se usually blow dries the paint immediately after application and it crinkles the paint and tends to create an extremely similar effect. I'll try to get the brand of the paint she uses. By the way, I'm going to attempt this method on a crappy interior piece I have laying around. I'll post some pics of the result if I get around to it anytime soon. :lol:

Yes, please do! I would love to see the results. The "blow" effect sounds promising! I tried SEM textured paint and it just makes it grainy, not really "textured".