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Bryan Irons photos
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Bryan Irons photos
1. Interior Door Makeover
Get an old piece of cardboard and make a template. It's easier on the wallet to chuck a piece of cardboard in the recycling bin instead of aluminum if/when there's a goof. Test fit the template and trim a little at a time to get it right. We had a nice, flat, recessed area begging to be filled, but aluminum is very malleable and can be formed into the shape you need with some practice and patience. Transfer the finished template to the sheet of aluminum and cut it out with tin snips, a jig saw, etc. A pneumatic cutter was our weapon of choice this time.
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Bryan Irons photos
2. Interior Door Makeover
After cutting them out, a little "fine tuning" might be required with a hand file. Perfect fit, well at least for our tastes.
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Bryan Irons photos
3. Interior Door Makeover
The new cover plates on the old crusty door panels looked out of place, sun bleached and faded, so we needed a fix. Duplicolor's vinyl and fabric paint to the rescue (www.duplicolor.com). This stuff is tough, easy to apply, flexible and comes in a few different colours. We chose a nice dark grey. Following Duplicolor's directions and three light coats later... ta-da! We went with all one colour, but let your imagination run wild with the colours available.
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Bryan Irons photos
4. Interior Door Makeover
Now we need to attach our aluminum plates to our newly painted panels. Exposed screw heads have a great, tough look and match the rest of the interior. Remember to check for bolt clearance behind the panel, if you’re running short on room you can always glue the plates or pop rivet them. We grabbed our old template and marked out a bolt pattern. This was transferred to both the plates and the panel. We drilled our holes and mated the panel and plate with 10 to 24 plated bolts with flat washers and ny-lock bolts to keep them from loosening up.
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Bryan Irons photos
5. Interior Door Makeover
Take your time with reassembly and inspect all the parts you're putting back in. The latches were cleaned up and re-lubed for many more years of service, and the key tumblers were given a close inspection as well. WOW, what a difference! After taking a set of old, faded doors, that didn't match our rig, we now have something to be truly proud of without breaking the bank.
Story and photos by Bryan Irons
Last issue we discussed the steps to cheaply and easily paint our new-to-us doors to match our trail rig. This time, we're fixing up the interior door panels... again, on the cheap!
This shopping trip to Canadian Tire (www.canadiantire.ca ) required nothing more than a few cans of Duplicolor fabric and vinyl interior paint, a small sheet of aluminum and some hardware. We already had the panels off and now cleaned them with a good household cleaner like TSP (Tri-Sodium Phosphate) that will not leave any residue after rinsing.
The PO (Previous Owner) decided to install some speakers in the doors past life. We have a V-8 to make music, so we need to cover this old install up. Aluminum sheet will do the job nicely and match the rest of the interior of the rig.