Pic request: door weather striping, rear side interior trim panel, arm rest bolsters

[Jonathan]

I am getting the feeling that a lot of this stuff is interconnected ;)

I felt inspired last night to take another stab at my door alignment. Driver's door not too bad, passenger door though clunks a bit. Took both striker pins out completely on the passenger door and tested how well it closes. Feeling some interference with the main piece of weather striping that goes all the way around the door opening, so I took it out too. It wasn't in there 100% all the way, which this is related to.

The door closed pretty well. I put the rear striker pin in with one washer. My passenger door for some reason seems to need to get pushed forward towards the front of the car as it closes. And you can actually see where one of the two screw tops on the rear door latch has scratched a groove in the fiberglas. I needed three washers in the front striker pin to get the head of the pin into the latch properly. All in all, it's actually closing pretty well now. It doesn't spring up like maybe it should... I attribute that to my torsion bars needing one more click of tension.

So here's where I was thinking my car doesn't look exactly like some of your cars. I recall when I put the weather striping on last season, that the edge where the V groove on the bottom of the weather striping is supposed to snuggle over and clip into place is a bit too wide. I saw some posts in the past on dremelling the edge down slightly to make it fit better. The thing is, I wonder if my whole vertical edge on the rear of the door opening has been coated with something in an effort to fix the fit of the rear interior trim panel (the one which the seatbelt comes through and also the rear speaker is in it) as well as fixing a loose arm rest bolster.

My pictures show the passenger side with the weather striping off, and you can see this "coating" clearly starting towards the top of the door opening and continuing down to beyond the bolster. While it's all in there nice and snug, I now wonder how the heck I would get it apart again as I have the seatbelt replacement kit to put in and was considering working on my speakers. The passenger side bolster got one of those replacement caps and is on there secure, but the driver's side is another story. That bolster was loose when I got the car and was RTV'ed in the interim. You can see where my thumb is how it is easily separated.

1) How is that rear interior trim panel supposed to be secured into place? And how do you normally take it out?

2) Does the weather striping edge look like it has a coating on it? Or is that factory?

Passenger side:
2002
1997
1998

Driver's side:
1999
2000
2001

[Rich]

1. a. The interior side panels are normally secured by a continuous flap of the vinyl trim that wraps over the fiberglass body tub lip around the door opening. It's glued to the lip and further secured by the weatherstrip. The upper seatbelt anchor and a small screw at upper rear corner also hold it in.
1. b. The normal removal is to take off the door w'stripping and unwrap as much of the vinyl as possible from the lip. If the vinyl won't come free then cut it away from the jamb keeping the tail as long as possible.

2. The faint white coating on the weatherstrip is factory.

Shots below of original panel placement. From right to left: assembled views of door jamb and upper rear of panel with anchor and small screw, then above and below the vinyl-wrapped lip of the jamb with the weatherstrip pulled away.

From your pics it seems that a PO already had this panel out, trimming the vinyl in doing so. Try using remaining vinyl and interior trim adhesive to get it connected to the lip of the door jamb again after you are done. Hope it grabs and you can cover the end of the vinyl with the weatherstrip.

2004200520062007

[1batt4u]

Mine was difficult to remove the vinyl from around the door opening. I had to cut it on both sides! Is that actual vinyl material, or is it vinyl spray?? Also, is it the same kind on the shifter plate and radio din?? My shifter plate is iising a few spots of paint or whatever it is. Is there a spray for that in which I can repaint it??

Thank you!!!

[Rich]

Mine was difficult to remove the vinyl from around the door opening. Is that actual vinyl material, or is it vinyl spray? Also, is it the same kind on the shifter plate and radio din?

I don't know if that is truly vinyl laminated onto the rear side interior panels or whether it is some other thin plastic. It is not vinyl spray. It handles like a thin fabric. It is bonded to the panels and the excess that was intentionally longer than the panel was bonded to the door jamb lips during assembly, which is what makes those panels hard to remove without cutting or tearing some of the "vinyl" off.

I also don't know if it's the same material that is laminated on top of the shifter plate and the radio DIN surround. Would not recommend paint for those parts except as a second-best solution until you install replacement plates.