Hey there guys am currently looking into retrimming my door cards. I have already bought some suede, foam and spray on glue.

Now i was hoping people may be able to give me some advice as i have never done anything like this before, but i dont wanna pay for it to be done, rather learn myself.

I have searched, but only found pics of people's retrimmed doors rather than any real tips and tricks.

Cheers
Timmy

Prob best way is to take a look at your door cards by taking the door trim off and look at how and where the cuts for the fabric were made and copy it.
Might also be a good idea to get some door cards from the wreckers to work on so if it doesn't work out you keep yours.

what spray on glue did you get?
what thickness foam did you get?

basically yeah, just rip off the existing material and trace around it for your new material (but dont do the corner cuts, as your piece will never stick on exact).

then depending on the foam you either iron it on, or you will need to spray the foam to the material before sticking it to the door card.

once done spray the foam backed material onto the door card, stick, and cut the notches for the corners (if you are unsure exactly what cuts to make, refer to the original material).

then spray the now cut edges and glue them back.



NOTES:
most spray on glues require both sides to be sprayed, and left to dry or become tacky, read instructions. i would not recommend quite a few types of glue.

when you are ready to apply the material to the door card, lightly lay the material over the card (it will touch around the edges and not in the middle), and then work the material from the inside outwards, careful not to get any creases (quite easy), and firmly rubbing to ensure the glue bonds well.

when doing corners, pull the material really tight and try and work the corner around carefully as to avoid creases

when you cut the corner notches, cut them slightly shorter than the edge of the door card, otherwise you will find that the material is left with an exposed cut.

your questions may have been answered already, but i'd like to add a bit more.
i did mine in white vinyl, in my old TR exec. when i do it again i'll use suede or leather or something this time :cool:

step by step, here we go;

0.) shopping; buy your suede or whatever, glue, foam and any tools you need. also i used stainless steel countersink bolts with allen heads and nylon locknuts, about an inch long and about 3mm or so (basically, i took one of those bolts you use to mount the trucks to a skateboard to a fastener supplier and said "i want about 30 of these in stainless steel" they were about $1.50 each or something)

1.) remove door skins; take window winders off, remove all screws, pull them out from the bottom, then pull them up to remove. (pretty easy, ask if you need more detail)

2.) remove door cards; you have 2 choices here. you can either try to remove the little metal clips without damaging them or the pins they go on... or you can just break all of them off, which is what i did.

3.) prep work; tear off the old fabric then sand the door cards back to raw plastic so you have a good surface to stick to. also, drill holes where all those pins were and countersink the holes. lay out your foam/suede and cut about 2 inches around your door cards, leave plenty of room around, you can always cut it off later.

4.) glueing; already described... so just follow what's outlined and glue all the foam and suede to the door cards. take your time to do it right, and pull the edges around to the back nice and tight.

5.) poke holes through the suede and foam, where the holes are that you drilled earlier, i just pushed a drill bit through it. you could use a skewer or anything you like here, you just need a hole. then poke the bolts through all the holes.

6.) mounting on door skins, line up all the bolts and put the card onto the door skin, then bolt it up from the other side and tighten it up. if you use locknuts like i did, at least you know it's not going to fall off lol

7.) put door skins back in car; just reverse the removal procedure, starting at the top, then push all the clips in and finally screw it all back on. don't forget to plug in your window controls and speakers if you have them.

8.) take photos and post a topic in the mods section :bowrofl:

why did you put bolts through the door card instead of just fixing it back the way it was intended? wanted the industrial look of bits of metal all over it?

imo it'd look fairly nasty, but if thats what you were going for, fair enough

Thanks for your advice Woob was very helpul. And i did it almost exactly as you detailed. The only thing i didnt end up doing was removing the old foam and material and foam and replacing it with my old foam. Instead i just glued my suede to the old fabric, lazy i know but it still came up pretty sweet. Much much better than the standard material used by mitsu :D

Pics here (http://www.aussiemagna.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61468&page=2)