I'm not posting this for anyone to think I'm being a smart @$$ know it all because I'm NOT. I have recovered many G body upper door panels but these are the first that needed the card board replaced from being torn and warped. The repop recovered upper panels are too expensive for me to buy so I redid my own to save money. I used a remnant of actual panel board from an upholstery supply but you could use metal, wood, etc. I feel that using sheetmetal would be cool but if you ever had to remove it and have brand new plastic clips, it would bend the sheetmetal. Anyway, this is how I did it and there are probably other ways. I'm not a professional upholsterer just a broke @$$ redneck trying to save a dime where I can. I started by using my cut off wheel and removed the staples holding the window sweep on. I then used a thin scraper to pop it off. I removed the foam and material. I then used the scraper to get between the board and upper metal plate to separate the two. I used an electric grinder with a steel knotted cup brush and cleaned the glue and cardboard crap off the metal trim plate. On the back of the metal trim plate is press punched teeth that originally held the card board. I used a 36 grit roloc disk on my angle grinder and ground them down. This allows the new board to lay flat on the metal plate. I used 1/8x1/4 rivets. The heads fit in the countersunk holes from the press punch. I used the rivet washers to give it a good clamping area. I only put them every few inches apart. I used a sheet rock knife to cut the new card board, a hole saw for the window crank hole, and an 1/8" drill bit for the rivet holes. I also used a bigger drill bit for the clip holes. After riveting the pieces together I used my 36 grit roloc on the rivet heads just to knock down the dome a little so the material will sit flat and not have humps in it. I also knocked down the back of the rivets too just a little. I have 1/4" foam to spray glue on, then I'll recover with matching material from my seats. I bought new inner sweeps, door lock knob ferruls, lock knobs, 442 emblems, and a bunch of new door panel plastic clips. Also, I spray paint cleared the board to help protect from moisture
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