Interior vynil question

[pfenlon]

The door cards and B post liners are as wavy as the ocean, but the vynil is not torn or in poor repair.

 

But its very hard and not so flexible, I would like to cut new hardboard panels out and re-use the Vinyl.

 

Is there a method for getting some flexibility back in the Vynil, using a heat gun perhaps.

 

I thought I would ask before making a dogs breakfast of it.

 

Doors are good and the window winding Mechanisms work well, I don't suppose they are used much in California

 

 

 

[stillp]

Give it a really good clean, then keep wiping it over with Armor-All.

 

Pete

[TR NIALL]

Pete you will need to replace the Plastic Door Curtains as that's what has damaged those Cards,when I did mine I used a 6mm Ply and screwed it to the door also covered it in Needle Felt the type Coach Builders use when doing Van/Bus Conversions,Pics available if needed.

[Geko]

Replace the cardboard with flexible PVC panel 2-3 mm

[stillp]

 

I would like to cut new hardboard panels out and re-use the Vinyl.

 

 

Biggest problem with that is finding staples short enough.

 

Pete

[tthomson]

There are commercial plasticisers for softening vinyl, but I have never tried them, and I have no memory of who provides them, but might be worth Googling.

 

Good luck

 

TT

[RobinTR]

Re Pete (stillp) point about short staples. When I did some door cards I bought too-long but suitable gauge/width staples, then held a strip carefully in a vice and the trimmed the length with an angle grinder fitted with a thin cutting blade. I think that one or two staples on the edge of the strip became dislodged, but enough remained "glued" so they could be used in a normal staple gun.

[stillp]

Robin, I tried that with a Dremel, but the whole strip fell apart! Might try again sometime with a better brand of staple.

 

Pete

[TR 2100]

Pete -

 

Out of a TR6?

 

AlanR

[RobinTR]

Pete, if I remember correctly I found/made a small strip of wood which fitted snugly inside the strip of staples. This gave some support so that the strip stayed in one piece. Using a Dremel may seem like a delicate way of going about it, but with the angle grinder the trimming was done in seconds and the thickness of the blade meant that it created a chamfer on the end of each staple, so punched in cleanly from the gun.

 

The door trims in question were actually on my Stag, but the design is basically the same. I stripped the vinyl and replaced the old warped cards with new items from one of the usual stockists. The old ones had lasted 40years, so I suppose that I shouldn't complain, but I treated the new cards to increase their life chances. I was using fibre-glass to repair the fibre-board parcel shelf at the time, so used some of the resin on the door cards... I mixed a batch with hardener and then diluted it with thinners so that it would brush out more evenly. After a couple of coats to both sides the boards looked more impervious to water, but took a week or so to fully harden and the odour to disappear. Only then did I complete the reassembly with the riveted metal support plates and vinyl (not sure if there are any similar metal plates in the TR's).

 

I suppose something like a marine varnish might be a more conventional sort of treatment, but I was hoping that the resin would be absorbed and so strengthen the card itself.

 

I don't think that I could get the rain curtains from the supplier, so I bought some damp proof membrane for a builder's merchant and used that.

 

Picture attached shows the inner side with curtain

[pfenlon]

Pete -

 

Out of a TR6?

 

AlanR

Yes Alan a 69 model from Tallahasse

Edited May 29, 2017 by pfenlon