BMW E36 Door Card (Panel) reupholstering

[dnbmbimmer]

BMW E36 Door Card (Panel) reupholstering


After a lot of testing and research this is what I did to re-vinyl my E36 328ic (vert) door/ trim panels.
STRIPPING OLD VINYL. To strip off the old vinyl use steam. I used a old electric kettle to do this. Put on leather gloves and use some needle nose pliers to first steam the back side vinyl, about 2-4 inches worth. Use the pliers to grab the vinyl and pull it from the panel. Now flip the panel and steam the front near the same area and pull it away from the panel. It should not take much effort to do this. Do not over steam the panel otherwise you may melt it. About 5—10 seconds will do it with you moving the panel around to spread the steam. You should now be able to dispense with the pliers and use your gloved hands to steam and pull the vinyl off. I used Mek to wipe down the plastic panel for prep. Remember to wipe down the rear edge as well. Now would be a geed time to repair any plastic clips, see my post on this if you don’t know how.

BUYING VINYL. My local fabric store sells vinyl and I found a good, but not perfect match. Some like marine grade vinyl and that’s fine but just make sure of two things. One, it’s outdoor rated vinyl and two that the vinyl is able to have stretch in it. The stretch will be greater in one direction than the other. As long as it has stretch in it you should be ok. Given a choice between two vinyls pick the more stretchy one. If your vinyl colour isn’t perfect you can either do all the panels or go down to your local auto body supply shop and get a colour matched vinyl spray made up. Spray all the panels at once for a perfect job. I have tried a trick of using Mek to strip off the back fabric mesh from marine vinyl but frankly it isn’t required with my method end it really didn’t stick well anyway. The Mek method does give you four way stretch vinyl though so if you want to try this go ahead. My test with this didn’t work and it bubbled after glueing.

GLUING. Being in Canada the often recommended Dap brand Landau trim contact cement isn’t available. If I could get I I would probably use it. What I used instead is Lepages strong non-gelled type of contact cement. Do not use the latex type. I should note that the spray can types didn’t seem to work and I tried several (Nashua 357, 3M 77, Permatex). The Lepages cement was too thick so I thinned it down 25%. I glued the front only of the plastic panel and used two coats on the tricky section at the back curved section. Glue the back of your vinyl, no big trick here except to maker sure it is worked into the fabric backing and don’t blob it. The glue is ready when a piece of wax paper won’t stick to it.

VINYL CUTTING.. Use your panel as a template and add a couple of inches for allowance in all directions. The BIG TIP here is to cut the vinyl along a bias of the vinyl. This means your vinyl pattern is cut around 45 degrees to the direction of the fabric weave. You must cut it out this way! Mark your cut out vinyl for location and orientation along an outside edge.
INSTALLING VINYL. I have found that the best way to install the vinyl is to cover the sections of the panel that you don’t want to glue as yet with wax paper. I joined the (small) sections of paper with painters tape to be able to remove/move the paper. Glue the panel in this order. Do the flat armrest section first followed by the back curved section next to the armrest. This is the section that always has the bubble syndrome so try to lay the vinyl down with the minimum of stretching involved (this is why you cut on the bias). It actually does lay down quite well. When pressing the vinyl into the panel use very light pressure at first until you are happy with the fit then press harder. Use your hand and massage the vinyl into place with force. You should rub it hard enough to create some heat. You now have the armrest and back curved section in place. Next do the flat back of the panel starting from the middle and work towards the edges. Take your time and lightly press it into place and then harder as described. When stretching see how the vinyl looks at the outside edges and try to minimize or even the amount of wrinkled vinyl as you go. This will make it easier to finish off the edges and make for a better job. Once the front of the panel is completed go over it all and massage it again just to make sure it is all adhered well. Now flip it over and apply your contact cement along the back edge. Trim the excess vinyl, about ½” from the panel edge works well. When dry glue the edge making sure to fold the corners well. Needle nose pliers can help if you need to fold these spots. Afterwards cut off any excess folds with a utility knife.

That’s it your done and it’s perfect or near to. I think I made every mistake or experimented with every combo before I got this right so you don’t have to. I do have photos but there’s a lot of them so maybe I should learn to make a youtube video.

Don B

• 
  

[dnbmbimmer]

Just added this video on youtube. It's a little rough as I've never done one before but you get the idea anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai6Y...ature=youtu.be

[B328iC]

Nice !