Dateline 2/17/2018 - Still working on the door panels, but made great progress. I now have the mounts for both panels attached to the doors. These are metal brackets with blind nuts welded to them. These are used to secure the door handles, but do a good job of holding the door card on too. On the front doors, I welded them to the door, but after taking the door cards off my 2000 Astro van to replace a window regulator, I saw the GM uses really big pop rivets, so I did the same this time. Much easier to do and I didn't have to worry about throwing hot metal into my new interior!
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| Fabricated metal brackets with blind nuts riveted to door. (Note, missing two rivets because I ran out!) |
To hold the door handles on, I used a piece of "L" stock as well as a metal plate that go inside of the handle. After sandblasting and painting the parts, I test fit everything on the door and using 6 minute epoxy thinned with Acetone, I impregnated small pieces of fiberglass fabric and used them to hold adhere the metal parts to the fiberglass door handle. I later put in a layer of 10 lb fiberglass using my regular resin/hardener firmly secure the pieces into place.
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| L bracket and metal plate before mounting in armrest |
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| Metal plate after mounting |
I also did some more form shaping and fiber glassing. Last weekend I joined the two halves of the center console and fiber glassed them, making a small glove box that will be under the armrest. This weekend I finished sanding and shaping the center console.
I also shaped and sanded the both arm rest pads and the center console armrest pad. The center console pad has a wood inset at the base to give a place to screw the hing into. There is a corresponding wood piece into the console.
Finally, I fiber glassed one of the door arm rests. I used my vacuum bagging tools for this. Came out pretty well with just a little sanding needed.
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| Center Console, armrest and left & right door armrests. The left one is fiber glassed |
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| Bottom of center armrest showing wood insert for hing mounting |
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| Center console with armrest on top |
At this point, the center console is ready for upholstery. The door panels are almost ready. I still have to made the carbon fiber inset attachments and shape the carbon fiber panels. This will probably take a weekend to complete, but once done, I will be ready to move into upholstery work.
To be honest, I'm getting pretty anxious to be done with these doors and center console. It was one thing when I was doing this the first time for the front doors because there was so much to do on the car that it was just another thing to get done. Now that the car drive-able and practically complete, and I've done a set of door panels already, I'm getting to the point that it just needs to be done! I can see why so many driving projects never get done. I need to focus!
