The Upholstery Forum

I am currently replacing the interior in a 66 Chevelle for a customer. I am curious if anyone has run into the chrome/stainless door panel trim piece that separates the panels? I made new panels and am trying to secure it to the vinyl but not having much success. I used the landau cement and let it tack up for some time before pressing it on and left clamps on either end for a while and it still is peeling off. It does not have pins on the back.
Any suggestions on how I can install this properly? Double sided 3M?

I am pretty sure there should be pins on the back of your piece. I have made clips when necessary by cutting a piece of light stainless as follows.

Figure 1: take a small piece of stainless about 1” wide and cut two slots about 3/16” apart deep enough to stop half way from the width of the trim. For example if you need a clip that is 1/2” wide, stop your cuts 1/4 inch from edge..

Figure 2 Now bend your 3/16 tang up at a 90 degree angle.

Figure 3 Trim the piece lengthwise so the final width is what you need. You now have a 1/2” wide clip with a 3/4” tang. Make 6-8 of them and you can install your strip through holes in your door panel.

John

BTW, It is not necessary for you guys to remind me, I am a terrible artist. :-))

John,

Yeah I was surprised when i took the old door panel apart that there were no tangs or pins of any kind. I had to steam it loose from the vinyl. I am working on panel #2 now so I will have the next piece off soon. It has a backing inside the trim so I hoped it would stick. Could be I didn't time the tack process well enough either.

I'll try to upload a pic of the back asap and hopefully the others have tangs, cause that would make life much easier.

Thanks for the info!

Matt

John,
Here is what i am dealing with.

Hmmmmm, That is a different situation.

Two thoughts....First, maybe you could add studs with a stud gun like body men use to pull dents. I have one. It's a shame you're not my neighbor.

Secondly, and probably a better solution, is to take a MIG welder and attach welding wire to the back strip. You could pull it tight with 8-10 pieces of wire through holes in the panel.

My origional idea could work but you would have to to take a die grinder with a cut off wheel down the middle of the strip. Once you had the strip split lengthwise, you could remove it and the make the clips a shown above. It would be very labor intensive and I don't think it would be the best way though.

Let us see what you end up doing...Good luck with ot.

John

That gives me some ideas to try i will definitely let you know what i end up using.

Thanks for the help

Matt

John,

Here is what i finally settled on. I just used the classic 3m tape. I tried drilling holes and running wire through to hold them on but it was very tough and risky and the wire really didn't want to feed well into the trim.

I don't have a way to run my welder at home so i did a test piece and it seemed ok so i just did the first one. Seems to be holding very well. Hope it lasts long term but gotta do something to make it work.
Thanks for the ideas!

Glad it worked out for you.

Glad to hear that all worked out for you. That door panel looks fantastic!

Thanks John! Appreciate all the videos and training! I doubt i would have been able to make them look like that without your videos. Thank you!