Door panel plastic replacement?

[Arne]

I did the shower curtain thing on one side of my car a while back, also thanks to E. for the idea. Buy the cheapest, thinnest one you can find. Works well.

[EScanlon]

As a point of interest, I recently had to open up the door to re-connect a misbehaving door latch rod to the latch mechanism itself. (I'll make note of the problem /fix later.)

I removed the door panel, and examined the back of it. I didn't take pictures, but there were no water damage spots or discoloration on it's backside. The Shower Curtain Liner I used... about 7 or so years ago (I redid my interior in 2002), is still pliant and working well... and I still had enough material left over to do the doors on the 67 Roadster... with STILL enough material to do the next Z or Roadster coming. Can't beat that for $3.

This is the second time in 7 years that this rod has disconnected itself making it impossible to open the door with the interior door handle. Having to roll the window down to use the exterior handle just looks too jerry-rigged for my taste, so I had accessed the door mechanism before. Accessing it this time only involved removing the bits of duct tape I had used to reseal the liner.

When I needed to access the interior of the door the first time, I simply used a small razor blade to slit the liner and fold up a section large enough for me to stick my hand in and still see what I was doing. When I finished, I laid the liner back down and used duct tape to re-seal the opening.

The offending rod is the type that has an "acorn" style tip on the end of the angled end that inserts into a plastic sleeve that locks it into place after you rotate the plastic's "grip" over the rod. In my car's case, the plastic sleeve has deteriorated to the point where it doesn't lock the acorn tip, and the "arm" that locks the rod has torn off.

I used a small zip-tie that when doubled over so that it resembles a Mobius strip, (kind of looks like a figure "8" made with ribbon) allowed me to grab the 90° bend and the straight part of the rod on the other side of the latch's arm and tighten the whole thing down.

It's somewhat of a temporary fix, but having done this before on other cars, I know it is good enough to last.

FWIW

E

[dk240z]

If you want cheap/free, go to Home Depot/Lowe's, and ask the guys in the building materials dep. if they'd let you have the plastic wrap off of any of the palletized concrete products. This is a thin but very tough 3ml. plastic wrap that you can make of vapor barrier out of. Might take two, but the guys that work there will be happy to give them to ya. Make sure the cut the cover down one side, so you can use the top part of the cover to make you barrier. If you don't understand what I mean, just go be the store and look at the concrete goods that they leave out in front of the contractors entrance.