My friend is working on a very nice '67 GT Fastback and had to obtain a repo deluxe door panel. He stopped by to see if I could give him some advice regarding the clips that fasten the panel to the door. I've attached a picture showing the back of the panel when it arrived. We have no idea what that black "stuff" is but it's impervious to alcohol, acetone, lacquer thinner, mineral spirits, & paint thinner. That's not a big deal but it is sprayed into all of the slots where the attaching clips insert essentially sealing the slot! Fortunately I had a 90 degree angle screw driver that I used to "open" the slots so that a clip could be installed. The biggest issue now is that the backing board is much thicker than the original and the standard clips won't slide in! If anyone has dealt with this situation before can you please shed some light on possible solutions. The door panel was ordered from a parts supplier but originated from Dashes Direct. My friend called them about the clips and was told that other sizes are not made and that he would need to heat the originals to open them up some so that they would slide on. I don't believe it!
Craig R.IMG_6566.jpeg
I has some repro's and the backing was too thick as well, I carefully ground some of the material away and slipped the clips on.
(As a side note - mine were warped so ii shaped plywood to the overall pattern of the parts and carefully clamped the to either corresponding side of the plywood for a while (months) and when I did need to put them on the car they had "flattened".)
I like that idea, JD. Will give it a try. Thanks!
Craig R.
I used the Dashes Direct panels (I tried others from other manufacturers) and faced the same issues. As I recall I used an angled awl to open up the clip slots and used repro clips. Even then the clips were a fight to get installed on the panels but in the end that worked to my benefit as I could align them with the holes in the door on the workbench (I made a template of each door to align the clips on the panel with) and they stayed in place while installing the panel to the door. I did NOT remove material from the panels to install the clips as JD did.