I recently installed leather seats into my xb and i want to finish off the look by changing the cloth inserts on the doors to leather. Well i removed one of the door panels and found that the insert seems to be bonded in?? If anyone has any experience with these doors pleae help me.
Thank you.

 

gotta cut those plasticy welds off and then most people usually use screws to reinstall.

 

The inserts are certainly glued into the panels. I had an upholstery shop install mine after I tried one (not particularly successfully ) They glued the inserts in after doing some trimming of the original cloth where it pokes thru the door panel. As best I can tell they left the rest of the old fabric in place (not sure I am totally happy with the result as it is far from perfect...but it is presentable). In any case they did what I wasn't equipped to do...can't get truely professional glues readily...I have no upholstery tucking or special cutting tools...(also they saved me from throwing my door panels thru the nearest wall while cussing at the leather).

 

Thank you. So it looks like i will be trying to cut these out and re-install them... i still have my templates so hopefully i will not have to start from scratch again. Ted the door card would have surived the wall impact... I got that frustrated lol.

 

 

I just did my door inserts tonight. The best method I found was to use a small razor knife and run around the groove where the factory material is tucked in to break loose everything. Of course then comes the fun part, pulling off the material. Depending on age of car and exposure to sun, you may get lucky and take the foam and cloth off in one try, but if not, get some 40 grit sandpaper or a dremel with a wire wheel and take the foam off. Of course now you need to either tape the area to be glue off or like I did, use a piece of posterboard in the groove to keep the glue from going where you don't want it. If you get glue on the panel, no worries, Goof Off will remove it and not damage the panel at all. Pic of one of my panels done is uploading, will post link when it's done.

 

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...5/DSC02127.jpg

 

that install looks REALLY nice! I'm in the same predicament as the original poster as I just installed leather for the seats myself and took one door panel off to check things out. I didn't see any way to remove the whole part that the cloth is on and put it back on.
GLN305: did you completely remove the part with the cloth on it or just the cloth itself? If you removed the whole part, how did you do that and then re-attach it? I'm a big believer in doing it myself, but not if I'm gonna totally screw it up.

 

The upholstered part of the door panel is NOT removable. It is a molded single piece of the panel itself so you have to remove the cloth.

 

did mine in tweed but not to happy about the way it looks, i think maybe i will just glass over them and smooth it and pain it for a different look

 

What kind of gule would one use to hold the new material on? I'm hoping to finally find some time this weekend to attempt this. And again thank you everyone for your imput.

 

3m makes the glue in spray cans use the heavy duty stuff, so it doesnt come off

 

thanks for the replies, looks like I'm going to have a pro do it.

 

How did you tuck the material so neatly?

 

My understanding is the leather inserts go over the fabric and you use a upholstery tucking tool to get the edges clean. dry fit first, trim if need, then use the glue (DAP spray adhisive). Getting my leather kit this week hopfully it'll go smooth.

 

The key is in how you cut it. I used the curved edge just above where the material tuck in as a guide to cut and slid the scissors along that. Another key is what kinda tool you use to tuck the material. A tucking tool works OK, but I find that a small screwdriver (about 3" long total including handle) can be ground down to make the tip like a knife edge shape, but smooth. This works better than a tucking tool in most cases. You also need to just take your time while tucking, it's really not that hard.

 

DAP works well, but I would prefer 3M 8090 or Super 90 adhesive. As far as dry fitting and timming before it's glued...probably not a good idea. To get the leather to look good you need to trim when it's glued down so that you can take stretching into account. I really need to do a tutorial on this so everyone can see how it's done.

 

that would be awesome!

 

x2

 

x3,000,000. DO IT please....I'm wanting to do mine soon also.