Door panel replacement.

I am doing some work on the interior…starting with the door panels. All of the interior panels were aftermarket and showing their age. The panels in the back seat area were modified to hold speakers.  The two front door panels had map pockets that the elastic had given out leaving the pocket open and droopy. I shopped around and decided on the door panels from TMI. They provide a choice of door panels with or without the map pockets. With GPS and map apps on our phones there is really no need for the map pockets and I think the door panels look much cleaner without them.

With the panels ordered it was time to go to work. I removed the old panels and had a chance to get a close look inside the doors. With the door panels off, the body of the car provides you with a sense of the car’s history. There was no rust to be found inside either door and most of the drain holes were open. With these later vintage Karmann Ghias, Volkswagen must have done a better job treating the metal to prevent rust. Of course, it helps that this car spent many years in the dry desert air of Las Vegas. What I did notice was that there had been some bondo work on the passenger door from what looks like a minor dent and the driver’s side door had noticeable significant bend on the bottom edge.

With everything open I was able to replace the door stop rods and associated hardware. You can see from the picture below, there was not much left of the what should be rubber coated rods. I found some of the retaining bolts missing from the window crank mechanism. I did not find the bolts on the inside of the door so you have to wonder who put the door panel back on without all of the window hardware bolted down properly. I used this opportunity to lubricate the window and door latch mechanisms. With everything done inside the door it was time to install a vapor barrier (which had been missing). Having the vapor barrier in place help prolong the life of the door panels.