I'm looking to wrap a part of the door panel with leather. Its the part that is wrapped in black gator in the picture and blue in the other picture. I took off my door panel to see if that part would just unscrew from the back. Instead I find that there are many plastic pieces that have been melted into place that hold this panel in place. How do I go about wrapping this. If I (somehow) manage to break off all of those plastic pieces from the back, how would I then get the panel back in place? Obviously it's possible. These were just two examples I found on google images of what I want to do. Any ideas and/or solutions????

 

Anyone?

 

its called plastic welded with the different plastic layers. Maybe try googling with those key words?

 

Patman is correct you will need to buy a portable plastic welder and the rods for it dremel the current welds out then upholster the area you want and the re weld with the plastic rods and welder.

 

Use a drill bit that is larger than the plastic welds. Go slow. Once they are all drilled out, remove the panel. Find some small, wide screws to re-install the panels once they are wrapped. I use the same method on the side pockets on Expi/Navi consoles.

 

Getting it apart I would use a Dremel. Alternatively, if you were very careful a soldering gun with the flat blade attachment works well, but you have to be very careful not to cut through the part you are trying to remove the insert from. I wonder if you couldn't use a hot glue gun, it is a lot cheaper and once that glue cools it gets almost as hard as plastic. I have used it for gluing many plastic parts and it work great.

 

Thanks a whole lot guys! I love this forum lol. I will go ahead and remove the original plastic and try finding screws that would fit. Anyone else have thoughts on the hot glue option? Kinda worried that if I tried that and it doesn't work it would just create a huge mess.

 

You could always try the hot glue first, then something else if it doesn't work.

 

I ran into this same problem when painting my inserts...as stated above, I found some [i]very[/i

 

I ran into this same problem when painting my inserts...as stated above, I found some very short screws and put it back that way. It's held up for ~4 years now. Good luck!

 

I just removed the melted plug caps carefully with a knife. Cleaned it carefully with rubbing alcohol and SEM leather primer.Then wrapped leather into it which I glued down with DAP Weldwood ( ).

Finally put it back in place with short screws.

For the armrest: removed it, cut rough piece of leather, soaked leather in water about 30 min, strech it to shape, glue it down with DAP Weldwood and screw it back.