Glue used on inner doors?

[vanne]

What on earth is that glue they have used on the inner outer door sections to keep the plastic bits bonded to the MDF? maybe it was better when new, now it just looks like sticky candle wax…

Ive started on my doors refurb, and the mess inside the door is pretty full on, its taken me a few hours to clean that crap off the MDF and re-alerdite the plastic bits back onto the MDF.

Ive also re-enforced my door handle, hopefully that will be much stronger now. The alcantara refurb is also coming along nicely, although ill only be redoing the top black part of the door, not the bottom part with the map hole in it as it looks to be too much of a PITA. So far going along pretty well. Hopefully it fits back together nicely too..



Door handle stage 1 reinforcement.. (another 2 sessions of glueing to go)



Original (very dirty) leather door trimmings




Alcantara door trimmings.



Need to repaint speaker trim.

[Vintage42]

What on earth is that glue they have used on the inner outer door sections to keep the plastic bits bonded to the MDF? maybe it was better when new, now it just looks like sticky candle wax…
Ive also re-enforced my door handle, hopefully that will be much stronger now...
...

The plastic clips were bonded to the panel with hot glue.
http://s49.photobucket.com/user/vint...ml?sort=4&o=19
That looks like the lower end of your handle, which is screwed to the door. Usually the upper end breaks loose first, and the handle stops being used so that the lower end is not broken.
http://s49.photobucket.com/user/vint...tml?sort=4&o=2

[vanne]

Yep spot on, but my lower Handel broke first. Fixing both upper and lower, so hopefully solid as a rock. About 8 out of ten door fasteners were broken and lots of hot glue had let go. Lots of fixing going on.

[Vintage42]

The factory used hot glue because it set quickly. When the clips are broken loose by improper removal, we have time to re-set them in epoxy which I think is neater.

[LannVouivre]

How did you remove the door speaker grill mesh? I kind of want to get some shiny steel mesh to replace it with, or paint it silver.

Also, which epoxy should be used?

[vanne]

Removal of the speaker mesh is a nil event, you just bend back the tabs on the grille and remove. Obviously its from the other side of the door, so you gotta take your door card off to get to it, then its one screw that loosens the speaker grille section.

just finished the door card, use any epoxy you like,



and..



I kinda recon that came out alright. I figured if i did do the bottom of the door, it would look pretty nice, but within a few ins and outs the bottoms would look like crap due to the feet/shoes scuffing against it as you get in and out of the car.

The door handle has finished with the glueing stage 3 of epoxy, and its pretty darn solid actually.






Ive thought about wrapping the door handle in Black Alcantara, but not sure about how wel it would hold up, i do however think it would look nice and the contrast would be welcoming , but i also think it would be quite hard to wrap it nicely...

Obviously the parts are not properly back together yet, but thats pretty much how it will look

[Vintage42]

I have Alcantara bolsters in my Forester. Alcantara is suede naugahyde. OK on a seat, but I would not want it for steering wheel, arm rest or door handle, because it absorbs body oils and sweat.

[steveo539]

Nice work on the door panel. It looks great. I had a similar issue on one of mine. On mine, the hot glue separated from fiber door card and stayed adhered to the plastic. It actually peeled the top surface of the fiber board off. I scraped the fiber off the glue and tried warming the glue with a heat gun with mixed results. The glue liquified and did bond to the fiber but the fiber continued to de-laminate from itself. I think I'll try painting some type of sealer onto the fiber board that soaks into the fiber. Then when it sets up it may strengthen the outer layer of fiber. Then I'll try reheating the glue again or use epoxy.

[BimmerBreaker]

I have Alcantara bolsters in my Forester. Alcantara is suede naugahyde. OK on a seat, but I would not want it for steering wheel, arm rest or door handle, because it absorbs body oils and sweat.

Alcantara is a synthetic microseude that is entirely it's own product. It has nothing to do with "naugahyde"

[Vintage42]

Yes. I was trying to think of the right word and came up with naugahyde. I should have said ultra suede. Alcantara is Italian ultra suede.

Wiki says Alcantara is "based on the same technology as another product from the same company named Ultrasuede. ... a joint venture between Italian chemical company ENI... formed Alcantara SpA in order to manufacture and distribute the material..."

I mis-remembered because Naugahyde and Ultrasuede/Alcantara are both plastics -- expanded PVC for one and polyester/polyurethane for the other.

[Mr Bingley]

Alcantara is a synthetic microseude that is entirely it's own product. It has nothing to do with "naugahyde"

You know I've never been exactly clear on what alacantara is--I figured is was something like that. It does look like it would wear prematurely.

[Vinci]

You know I've never been exactly clear on what alacantara is--I figured is was something like that. It does look like it would wear prematurely.

Alcantara has very high wear properties, particularly compared to actual suede. Bear in mind, this is REAL Alcantara I am referring to and not the generic microsuede that you can get from the fabric store. The real stuff is >$100/yd.

I've had it in my car (shift/brake boots, arm rests, steering wheel) for years now and it still looks great.

[Vintage42]

... this is REAL Alcantara I am referring to and not the generic microsuede that you can get from the fabric store. The real stuff is >$100/yd....

True Ultrasuede and Alcantara are the same thing, made by two companies under the one owner that invented it. But only the product made in Italy can be called Alcantara.

[BimmerBreaker]

It is the same as Ultraseude but in the US it is sold as Alcantara, it is not available at fabric stores like most "seudes" - as Vinci mentioned it has excellent wear properties. It can be cleaned easily with a warm damp cloth or in extreme cases a toothbrush to clean the mat. A lot of people think it wears poorly because real seude and a lot of the cheap synthetic seudes wear poorly as does Amaretto, the seude type material used on BMWs prior to the E46/E39 generation. Naugahyde is a fabric with PVC coating, it has nothing to do with any of these materials.

[crashgordan]

i've often wondered how hard it would be to injection or heat mold new door cards out of something more durable. if someone had a couple of cards in sound condition that molds could be taken off of, or exact measurements taken from...
there's enough of these cars in the world with failing cards, i imagine there would be some market for this...

[steveo539]

An injection mold of that size would probably cost tens of thousands of dollars to have designed/machined. Thermal forming tooling would be much less expensive. I've heard of thermal forming tooling made by making a "splash mold" where some type of casting liquid (like plaster) is poured onto a sample part. When the liquid hardens a mold is made from the casting. I think these splash molds are temporary however and not used to make thousands of parts, more like for a small batch. The door pockets would need to be a separate part glued to the base panel.

[crashgordan]

good to know! thanks!

An injection mold of that size would probably cost tens of thousands of dollars to have designed/machined. Thermal forming tooling would be much less expensive. I've heard of thermal forming tooling made by making a "splash mold" where some type of casting liquid (like plaster) is poured onto a sample part. When the liquid hardens a mold is made from the casting. I think these splash molds are temporary however and not used to make thousands of parts, more like for a small batch. The door pockets would need to be a separate part glued to the base panel.

[vanne]

Just to update this thread a bit. Finished one door card a few weeks ago and re installed in the car, at the same time, installed the M mirrors..

Couple of pics.

shameless Z4 plug. ;P

[amancuso]

Nice!

[LannVouivre]

Very nice!

I had a brain-dead moment and ripped the passenger's handle the rest of the way off the other day when my BF forgot to close the door. I'm thinking of trying to reconstruct plastic parts of the handle with Plast-Aid and seeing if I can get it to actually function again since the handles have gone from $104 to $140.

Had a dream that I pulled the dashboard for some reason to buy a "new" one for $93, too (mounting tabs for glovebox on the passenger's console totally broke off).

[amancuso]

Very nice!

I had a brain-dead moment and ripped the passenger's handle the rest of the way off the other day when my BF forgot to close the door. I'm thinking of trying to reconstruct plastic parts of the handle with Plast-Aid and seeing if I can get it to actually function again since the handles have gone from $104 to $140.

Had a dream that I pulled the dashboard for some reason to buy a "new" one for $93, too (mounting tabs for glovebox on the passenger's console totally broke off).

Luckily my door handles are still in top notch condition. I always tell my better half and other passengers to just tug lightly on the door handle and inertia will finish the job. :-D

[gc325is]

An injection mold of that size would probably cost tens of thousands of dollars to have designed/machined.

Any one try one of these?

http://www.hardmotorsport.com/hard-m...oupe-textured/

[jajou318]

Any one try one of these?

http://www.hardmotorsport.com/hard-m...oupe-textured/

That's for an E36 Coupe (3 Series) not E36/8 Coupe (Z3 Coupe).