Top Door Trim

[Bruceynz]

Hi Everyone,

My Cordoba has these plastic mahogany door trim top panels and some on the little back windows, the door lock goes through the middle of it, my ones are cracked in half and I believe this to be the case for most people, has anyone come up with a fix or replacement part? If not I am thinking to take mine off, glue them up with some bracing in the back and covering them with a material or some sort of adhesive vinyl in wood grain.


Thanks
Bruce

 

[kkritsilas]

I have been thinking about this for a while. I think anything that uses plastic will fail over time, so I have been thinking along the lines of replacing the entire plasitc piece at the top of the door panels with either fiberglass molded to the same shape and that will accept the same door hardware, or possibly doing it out of cut and shaped pieces of either baltic birch or marine grade plywood. Either cone would have a top layer of walnut or similar type veneer that would be as close a match as possible to the rest of the plastic wood grain interior. The veneer would be clear urethane covered, and perhaps even the structural plywood wood as well in order to prevent warpage, moisture absorption, or distortion. Just and idea.

Kostas

 

[Bruceynz]

Do you think if I went down the track of making some fibre glass ones that there would be many people interested? If I get some made for myself then it could get a few extra made at the same time.

 

[kkritsilas]

I can't speak for the board, it would probably be best that you ask the board in general, or try to post a poll (I don't know if this is possible). Other issue, of course is the shipping from your location to North America (not saying that people in other countries wouldn't be interested, just that I think the overwhelming majority of the J body cars is in North America, so that would be where the majority of people who would be interested would live). I would be.

Kostas

 

[Bruceynz]

Yeah the distance from the USA is a problem

 

[moreada]

Mine could use a refresh, but gotta ask, what causes it? In my car it appears the doors gave swelled and getting a clean join seems a futile effort. Even a replacement would likely suffer a similar fate, no?

 

[kkritsilas]

The UV from sunlight causes the plasticizers to break down, or more correctly, the plastic itself to break down (that's why a lot of the plastic "featherwood" door tops went from a brown wood grain to sort of pinkish/purplish and black swirls). The plastic, now being brittle, cracks when the temperature changes and it cannot expand/contract, and it cracks to relieve those stresses. It can happen to any plastic (not if kept indoors all the time, I suppose), but the plastics used back then weren't as good, iin terms of stability with UV exposure) as they are today. Note that the straight coloured door tops seem to hold up much better, from all reports.