Some time ago I wrote about repairing my 1984 Corvettes door panel. The panel its self was not well made … read “cheap” and didn’t stand up well to time/use. Unfortunately, I can’t say there was any improvement in “quality” of the door panels in my 2007 Vette. But this project isn’t a Corvette door panel, but my son’s Chrysler LeBaron.
The LeBaron is 1990’s car and the door panels are 1990’s cheap, no nice way to say that. This quick project was didn’t start out about the door panel, other than we had to take it off to check the multiple window control switch. The window controls were part of a plastic insert that also has the remote control for the drivers’ side mirror poked through it. It stays put, normally by 3 prongs that push into “V” clips that are on stand-a-lone braces that are mounted on the door panel directly – but not well done.
Since the insert has slid down over the past few months, it seemed that either driving vibrations and/or normal door operations, so while we are in there we’d push the prong back in. Seemed simple enough.
The back of the panel a fiber board/plastic composite – not really fiberglass but similar and it’s pretty sturdy.
Back side of the door panel.
Here you can see the brackets I mentioned above. However, the way in which the bracket are attached to the board is meant to last forever. They are held together with bits of glue in holes along the edges of the bracket. In the heat of Arizona and the great condition our roads are in (tongue in cheek) this type of connection is not ideal.
Here you can see the glue the back of the bracket and that is oozed out into the holes.
This image below is the results of the glue pulling off – separating from the fiber board.
Part clue – Part fiber board. This was laying at the bottom of the door panel
I’ll finish this up in the next post.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
