Door panel is separating

[kbelky]

I was lubing the window and door lock linkage on my '81 last night and saw some WD-40 dripping down from between the outer door skin and inner frame. I could actually pull the skin away from the frame about 2 1/2 inches. It is separating on the aft end, lower section. Any suggestions on how to fix this?

Thanks, Kevin

[Jerry Clark]

Re: Door panel is separating

Hi Kevin:

If the vinyl has separated from the backing you can carefully peel the vinyl away from the backing material enough to spray some contact cement between the vinyl and the back panel. If the vinyl is separating from the foam pad behind it you will have a difficult time making it look right, however, you may try the same procedure of contact cementing between the vinyl and the foam underlayment, it can be difficult / impossible to get it smooth.

Best of luck.

jerry

[Wayne W.]

Re: Door panel is separating

I assume you mean the fiberglass outer door skin is coming off the door frame. Its pretty common. The first thing you do is put up that WD 40 !!!!. That stuff causes a lot of problems. You probably will not be able to get it out of the fiberglass and if you keep using it the paint on the door is in jeopardy. Clean the loose area with some kind of solvent and or sand the area to be bonded. Use an epoxy type product to bond it back together. The factory continued to use polyester bonding agents even with the SMC type fiberglass and it didn`t work very well.

[Jerry Clark]

Wayne, One of us

Misread this posting and I fear it was me. If Wayne is correct DON'T try the contact cement fix, :)

jerry