306 Door Card Retrim

[Rob Turbo 3]

I've decided to retrim the door cards on my 306 estate, it left the factory with grey trim, since I've had it I've swapped the seats to black half leather from a meridian, and black pillar trims from my dad's old estate, the carpet was already black, as is everything else, apart from the door cards, so I've set about sorting the problem! I did have the door cards that match the seats from the meridian, but that was when I had my last 306 which was a ph1, so the door cards were different, and they didn't have holes for the window handles, I was going to fit them anyway, but there wasn't enough space for the handle to turn, I tried selling them, no takers, so after them cluttering the place up I threw them in the skip, shortly after that I got the estate and wish I'd kept them!!

 

First off I've removed one of the door cards, I went for one of the rears so I don't have to look at it while I'm in the car!

 

 

The bit with the fabric is seperate to the rest of the card, but fastened on with melted plastic tabs,

 

 

So after firing up the soldering iron, I softened the melted bits and pulled it apart,

 

 

 

The matreial is in 3 layers, there's some white felt like material as backing, then foam, then the grey outer material. The white stuff is well stuck, so I left that and pulled at the grey material, this came off fairly easily, some of the foam stayed on the card, some stayed on the grey material, I'm going to remove all of the foam, but I'm not sure if I'm going to replace it, I've laid the original material over the card again and there's not much difference between bits with foam and bits without, and on one of the front door cards the foam has seperated leaving a baggy bit, so if I don't bother with the foam it might prevent that happening again.

 

So at the minute I'm left with this,

 

 

I've asked for some samples from a couple of sellers on ebay, which should be coming sometime next week (or this week, depends how you arrange your weeks!), so should be making a bit more progress in a week or two.

 

In the mean time, does anyone have any advice on which glue to use to stick the new material to the card? I was planning on using spray adhesive, but if anyone knows why I shouldn't, or has a better idea then I'm open to suggestions.

 

More soon hopefuly!

[Rob Turbo 3]

Got a sample today, it's more or less what I want, but not stretchy enough I don't think, I might buy a metre of it to try with one door card, it's cheap enough, but not so cheap that I'd buy enough to do all the door cards on the off chance I can use it!

 

 

I'm also going to hunt for some similar looking, but stretchyer (is that even a word?)

[Rob Turbo 3]

I bought a metre of the material and had a go at sticking it to the door card today and it didn't go well at all! It went on ok until I got to the curvy bit at the bottom of the card, then it was just full of creases that won't come out.

 

I've still got enough to do another 2 door cards but it's a waste of time even trying, I've pulled it back off the one I started and I'm going to have to have a look for something else to cover them with.

 

I'm going to have to do something, I can't leave it as it is and only have 3 door cards!