Reupholstering Door Cards

My 1999 Legacy GTs door cards are a weird combination of three or four colors. This makes them very unpleasant to look at, at least for me. Today I had enough time to deal with all four of them. The first little speed bump I came across was color and fabric choice. After some consideration, shopping around and help from a friend I decided to go with gray. My plan is for my cars new interior "theme" to consist mainly of gray and black. Once the choice was made I headed into town and picked up some gray fabric from Jo Ann's Fabric store. It was pretty thin so I also got some poly padding to give it a better feel once in the car.

The first step was to remove the door panels to gain access to the screws that hold in the cards. I simply had to pop open a couple covers located in the door handle and the door latch areas, and unscrew the Phillips screws inside. After removing both screws I ran my hand along the bottom of the panel and popped out all the little plastic clips. Once all the pins had been removed I took off the tweeter cover with a tug in the outword direction. I then lifted the door panel up and off being careful not to pull it to far from the door as there were still three wire clips attached. These clips are for your courtesy light, locks and window controls. Some of the clips were a hassle to remove. After not budging for 12 years, they took a lot of gentle persuassion until they finally released their grasp. Once they were all off I fully removed the door panel from the door.

I flipped over the door panel so that the front was facing down. There were eight Phillips screws that I removed before the old door card fell out. Due to the heat of the day (at least 98°) the glue was soft and peeling the old fabric off wasn't a problem. The old fabric had left a sticky glue residue on the plastic support panel so I hit it with some soap and hot water to clean it off. This step would ensure that the new glue would stick securely. Using the old piece of cloth I traced the shape onto the polyester fabric I used for padding. I was careful to leave about an inch on all sides so it would wrap around the sides of the panel. When done tracing I cut along the line with some scissors. I then used some spay adhesive glue to fix it onto the panel. While that was drying I used the same piece of old fabric to trace out the card onto the gray fabric, and cut that out as well. It was important to make the tracing on the backside of the new fabric so the line would not show up once it was in place on the panel. After a couple minutes the padding was dry, so I sprayed more adhesive on top of it and added the gray fabric. Using firm pressure from my palm I pressed out all the wrinkles and imperfections. Once the front was dry, which took only a couple minutes I sprayed a small amount of glue around the edges on the back side and then folded the edges over. Cutting the corners to make the fabric tuck better will greatly improve the overall look of your product when you finish.

Once the final glue layer dried I reinstalled the card back into the door panel. I then put the panel back onto the door making sure all the wired clips are connected and all the pins where in position. Once it was in place I checked to see if my window would still go up and down without trouble, which it did. I then proceeded to tighten down the screws and push all the pins into place. One down, three to go. In about an hour I had finished the front passenger side as well as the back two. The finished product looked great compared to the old fabric and for only about $10 its a great way to freshen up the interior of your car.