Got the left door card back on the Golf. Took it off because applying window tint was easier with the window completely out of the car. I also got real tired of the dirt and grit being blown onto the glass because it was windy outside, and the garage is already busy with Jettachero's paint prep. And microscopic grit on the glass will ruin the tint job and drive you to drink.
Anyway, the door cards have the sagging/releasing fabric on the insert part that holds the door handle and window switches. So I decided to fix that while the door card is out. The 3 screws at the bottom of the door weren't doing anything either since the door card crappy plastic broke out and I decided I was lucky the screws stayed in the door even if the plastic didn't hold and broke. Also, the ridge that sticks out at the top and inserts into the molding on the inside of the window is half broken, but I don't know how to fix that.
I finally fixed what I could on the card, and the left one is back in. The passenger side needs repairs to the door handle before replacement. The driver's side did as well, but that was relatively easy. Easier than the passenger side anyway.
I have a few points to relate if you've never done anything like this and want to give it a try to do it yourself. Some of these points apply to fixing your own headliner as well in that the headliner is the same fabric with old urethane foam that crumbles into crumbs and brown goo on the inside, the foam fails, and then the headliner droops and looks awful. For me, when the drooping headliner hits my head I have a bad reaction and end up with a cranked neck because I don't want to go someplace and arrive with a bad case of hat-hair. So you can figure the Golf's headliner will be fixed before the end of April.
And sorry there's no photos. I suppose I could have, but I was focused on getting this job out of the way so I could resume the finish work on Jettachero. I need that done by the end of April as well. My own goal, but I'm not interested in driving a cosmetically challenged trucklet anymore.
1. Removing the insert may not be the best way to go. The reason for this is that the plastic tabs in the rest of the door that hold that insert on are longer than needed, and the insert is held in by melting the excess tab to sort of weld it all together. The covering with the urethane foam-turned-brown-goo is welded into the middle of it all, so you are guaranteed a mess. You can remove it by breaking the tabs but then you are not guaranteed a good way to reattach the insert. If you can carefully cut the rounded melted part of the top of the tab down to not go below that inside surface of the insert, and slice along the sides of the tab, you should have enough material to apply hot melt glue (or plastic bond epoxy or or other suitable adhesive) and get the insert back in the door card.
In case you think you should just glue the insert directly to the rest of the door card (and there's a rim that would make you think you can do that), then there are a couple of problems regarding spacing. That is, the insert sits on top of a 'base' made at the bottom of each tab. If you cut the tabs off completely, the spacing needed for the door handle will be lost and I wouldn't take bets on your door card going back onto the door correctly. So maybe you could make some little pads to use to glue the insert onto the rest of the door card.
If you don't remove the insert, then you can just very carefully cut the old foam off around the perimeter of the insert and go from there. You will just have the problem of how to deal with the mess you will make when chemicals needed to remove the gooey residue from the insert also dribble all over the rest of the door card. Maybe that won't cause trouble - hard to say.
2. I know of 2 things that work well to remove that residue. Acetone and Awesome ( a yellow cleaner found at Dollar General also good for removing window tint film- it dissolves the glue). Both messy but acetone evaporates very quickly. But acetone is kinda expensive because it evaporates quickly. And you'd better be using it outdoors or the fumes will create an explosive atmosphere while it asphyxiates you. And you will need lots of paper towels to wipe off the brown stuff as the acetone dissolves it. Same thing with the Awesome needing lots of paper towels. That cleaner is slower than acetone but it isn't going to make an explosive atmosphere and it doesn't evaporate so fast. It is still a mess and you have to use a lot - enough to really wet the insert.
The one upside to this is the insert doesn't dissolve in either acetone nor Awesome. It does, however, start to dissolve in xylene. Xylene doesn't evaporate nearly as quickly as acetone and will last longer, but it will start to dissolve the backing material. Ergo, if you use it, work as fast as you can and don't leave it on there.
3. Other cleaners may work. Hey, maybe some other solvent is a superb chemical to use for this, but I haven't tested any of those others. Except xylene. See above.
4. When buying your replacement material, buy a knit as opposed to woven cloth. It is the only one that can stretch a little to get around the curves in the surface you are going to cover. Knits will stretch more in one direction versus the other; figure out which and keep that in mind when you are buying material and trying to figure out how to cut it for placing onto the surface. Also, the knits I found at the fabric store have a lock stitch so they don't run. That means you don't need to melt the entire perimeter of an installed piece of material, but gluing it in place would accomplish the same thing anyway. I guess the only real advantage is that you won't get runs in the material when you stretch it while installing it.
5. 3M spray adhesive 90 works well, but is not easy to use. It can also soak through thin cloth and discolor the appearance of white or other very light colors. If you know of another good adhesive that doesn't cost the earth (3M is very proud of this stuff. Just check the price. ) then please let me know. I know I have more of this (headliner and door card cloth inserts) to repair.
6. I decided to try a different foam that wouldn't start crumbling to dust/goo in a few years, so I used some polyethylene sheets used for packing. This worked well except that for a very light color (I have white areas in the pattern I chose) shows the uneven surface of extruded polyethylene foam. A predominately dark pattern probably won't show that. A smooth surface foam would probably be even better since it wouldn't restrict the pattern, but I'm not wasting any more time on this. It was hard enough to find the polyethylene that I did find.
And that's about it. Hopefully I didn't waste your time writing stuff you already know. If this helped you, then you're welcome.
Cheers,
PH
