Fixed my loose door panels for good!

I guess you could call this my custom interior mod. One of a few I've done. This one isn't so much cosmetic however.

I don't know about you guys, but all 4 of my door panels were loose. Specifically the push tab closest to the top outer of the panel. New OEM tabs wouldn't work. I needed a better tab for that location than the factory. The gap was so bad, sometimes the door panel would catch on the door molding and wouldn't let me open the door. It was a pain in the ass.


The colored one is factory. The problem is the new piece is thinner.
http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e7...ics/IMG334.jpg

They fit great!
http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e7...ics/IMG333.jpg

This was my solution make the hole in the door smaller.
http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e7...ics/IMG331.jpg

Close up of the materials used
http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e7...ics/IMG332.jpg

I made the little brackets and riveted them to the door. The doors are metal. I would rivet one side and hammer it into shape lightly and rivet the other side.
http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e7...ics/IMG335.jpg
http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e7...ics/IMG339.jpg


Passenger front door panel gap before (this was on all of them)
http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e7...ics/IMG338.jpg


Passenger front door panel gap after!
http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e7...ics/IMG340.jpg


Rear driverside panel after!
http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e7...ics/IMG337.jpg



Now I don't have to worry about the stupid door panels anymore! :045:

Kudos!

But why did you have this issue to begin with? Oversized speakers? Sound dampening?

Sent from my Rooted Droid X using hacked Tapatalk 2

I'm wondering the same thing. I've taken off my door panels literally 25+ times, and I've never had an issue putting them back in flush.

The door panels were a little loose when I bought the car with 72K. It got worse with age.

I do have a huge 15" sub in the back. I don't have any sound dampening. These cars are built pretty solid to begin with. The speakers are factory sized. 6.5" front, 6x9 in the back. The deck has a low pass filter so the bass doesn't ruin the speakers. They don't hit hard. That's what the sub is for! I don't really think the sub is to blame for the door panels. Shutting the doors cause the most impact and force in the direction for the panels to pop off.

Also, the top edge of the panels are all warped. I assumed it was from the Texas sun. It doesn't look terrible, but it's not how it should be. Nothing I can do to fix that.

Warpped eh?

I guess its possible for them to warp if mounted incorrectly and left like that to take shape. My guess is it happened before you owned it, because this is the first case I ever seen of the sort.

http://i50.tinypic.com/wqr15f.jpg

This was one of the pics I took when I first bought the car. The date stamp was Feb. 2009. You can even see the panel popping off. Notice how the top edge is warped? All this was like that before I ever installed a sound system. I can't be the subs fault.

my door panel looks almost exactly the same on top of both front driver and passanger. so it's not just you.

Looks like a 9G thing, the 8G's have that hard plastic interior panel on the doors, it doesn't warp like that. And we have screws on the side where they have those push tabs on the side, we only have those on the bottom of the panel. However, that's actually a very nice solution to that problem, pretty neat.

Nice work!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JesterheadGTS

my door panel looks almost exactly the same on top of both front driver and passanger. so it's not just you.

---

Good to know I'm not the only one.




BTW, our panels are hard plastic too. Even that top part.


Thanks guys, I thought it was a clever fix too.

good job.

for those who want to do something similar in the future, you might want to go here and find a christmas tree trim panel retainer that fits the factory hole

I looked around, not very hard though. I wouldn't say this is very hard, but that's just me. I had everything laying around already. Only cost was the retainers. It would be much easier if you could find a bigger "christmas tree" retainer though.

1 of my panels looked "warped" to, so i took it off fixed it. Before you clip your clips you just need to hang the "warped" part flush along the window there is a little lip it catches.