torn fabric on my door panels
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Junior Member
Joined: Jan 2006
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torn fabric on my door panels
I have torn the leather fabric on the door panels on my 97 Ford F150. I removed the door panel to see if I could remove the torn panel, stretch new fabric over it, and put it back together. To my horror, the panel is installed by melted plastic rivets with no way to remove them and take off the panel. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to remove and replace these rivets without destroying the panel. I can't just put the fabric on from the outside because it will have no " lip " to hold the leather on after I'm finished. HELP !!
Technical Article Contributor
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 10,511
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From: Under the flightpath of old ORD 22R
Last time I saw someone do this was on another mfgr, not your truck.
They cut off the metled plastic rivets, and put the new interior cloth over the panel, and used regular pop rivets to put the panel back on. The door was in bad shape, so he had nothing to loose trying it.
I don't know if this would work in your case or not, without knowing what the inside of the '97 looks like.
It is just one idea, you might want to wait and see if someone else comes up with another idea.
Have you tried the junk yard method yet ? Seeing if there is a door panel with the same color leather in good condition, and just replacing the whole panel ? Don't know the cost of this. You might try to find one as an experiment, prior to going at it with yours as well. Depends on the size of the melted rivets, if you could do it or not.
They cut off the metled plastic rivets, and put the new interior cloth over the panel, and used regular pop rivets to put the panel back on. The door was in bad shape, so he had nothing to loose trying it.
I don't know if this would work in your case or not, without knowing what the inside of the '97 looks like.
It is just one idea, you might want to wait and see if someone else comes up with another idea.
Have you tried the junk yard method yet ? Seeing if there is a door panel with the same color leather in good condition, and just replacing the whole panel ? Don't know the cost of this. You might try to find one as an experiment, prior to going at it with yours as well. Depends on the size of the melted rivets, if you could do it or not.