Door Panels Galore

[jglawnyc]

Hi Ronnie and all the Reatt-os out there:  OK, here's a question to test you:  After having my sweet green '91's driver's window motor replaced, the lower part of the tan door panel was loose-ish.  Lately it was "sticking" so-to-speak...meaning when opening the door, the lower panel would slightly pull away from the door structure and catch on the sill.  I picked up at Autozone some replacement plastic door panel retainers that looks appropriate, but they aren't doing the job.  If you know, what kind/size/part number do I need and where can I find them?  Also, is it common for the area just over the pull strap to become "bloated" or bulged out?  Is the bulge an easy fix?  Thanks.   Jeff

[jglawnyc]

OK Folks:  Took some electrical tape and tightly wound it several times around the two plastic bottom door panel retainers, used my thumb nail to push it in to the textured indentations to give it back some resistance, inserted the heads back into the receptacles on the door panel and carefully pushed the retainers into their holes.  So far its working great, holding strong.  As my trusted mechanic says, "it doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to work well and look good."

[droid5977]

What happens is, the rubber grommets on the door that hold the pins, split over time and can't hold the pin anymore. I was able to get some off an 89' to replace mine, but a lot of those were split also. I'm going to see if a friend of mine might try to print some on his 3rd printer.

[jglawnyc]

Thanks for the info....a Lowes or well stocked local hardware store will generally have several draws of different sized grommets.  I found one a while back to replace the plastic one at the bottom of our shifters when I thought I was going to re-do the peeling black paint on the shifter position slider...I ended up peeling off the crackled black paint and cleaned up the residue  using some Goo-Gone.  It is now shiny metal and looks great, if not original.

[retired mechanic74]

Hi Ronnie and all the Reatt-os out there:  OK, here's a question to test you:  After having my sweet green '91's driver's window motor replaced, the lower part of the tan door panel was loose-ish.  Lately it was "sticking" so-to-speak...meaning when opening the door,  the lower panel would slightly pull away from the door structure and catch on the sill.  I picked up at Autozone some replacement plastic door panel retainers that looks appropriate, but they aren't doing the job.  If you know, what kind/size/part number do I need  and where can I find them?  Also, is it common for the area just over the pull strap to become "bloated" or bulged out?  Is the bulge an easy fix?  Thanks.   Jeff

 

   I experienced the same problem but could not find suitable replacement parts. SOooo what I did was to make some small L shaped brackets and installed them on the inside of the door and while installing the panel marked the location of the brackets and measured the length of the brackets, then held the panel in place and drilled through the panel and brackets then installed chrome shoulder screws, no more problem. To look at it you would think it's factory.