Inner door panel top corner trim repair.

[Scooterwrench]

When I bought my truck one of the things I noticed was the top,front corner trim was missing and found it behind the seat. At the time I figured it was just missing the retainers and no big deal. Yesterday I got the new dash installed and knew I was going to have to address that little problem so this morning I pulled the door panel and discovered that that trim had originally had tabs that went through the panel and heated and bent over to affix it to the panel. Scratched my head for a minute and came up with this "fix".

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I drilled two .100" holes in each of the tabs,

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and made up six "backers" out of some heavy ziptie strap.

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[Scooterwrench]

I looped 12 little zipties down through the six slots(there are 7 tabs and slots but one tab was broke off flush with the backside of the trim panel),through the holes I drilled in the tabs and back up through and just starting them in their nuts(yup,that's what that part of the ziptie is called)leaving them loose till I got all twelve started.

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Then I slid in my backers,drew 'em up tight and trimmed off the tails with my flush cutters.

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Some new panel retainers and fixed.

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Hope this helps someone who has the same issue!

 

[johnckhall]

Necessity is the mother of invention. That's why I love working on my truck and figuring things like this out. Great idea and application!

 

[Orpedcrow]

Heck yea. Nice fix! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Scooterwrench]

If I were to ever meet the person that invented the ziptie I'd probably kiss 'em right on the mouth. Necessary item in Harley tool bags!!!

 

[HotWheelsBurban]

If I were to ever meet the person that invented the ziptie I'd probably kiss 'em right on the mouth. Necessary item in Harley tool bags!!!

I keep several sizes of zip ties in my tool box. Had a work project for several months that used them, so I was able to get reimbursed for some of the smaller ones. I have black ones for wire looms and things that need to be subtle. If it's something I need to know if the zip ties broke off, I use neon pink and green ones so I can easily see if one is missing.

 

[someotherguy]

After dinner the wife and I were re-watching Breaking Bad, and it was the episode where Mike restrains Walt with a zip tie to the radiator at the pest place, and he comes up with the idea to burn the zip tie off using a stripped electrical cord. I thought to myself, why burn your wrist going for the strap part of the zip tie where it's touching your skin? You could go for the (didn't know it was called the "nut", thank you) top part and melt that and the tie would let go with less damage to your skin. TV drama..

Anyway sort of related, I did a door panel repair for a very common issue on the 1990-1994 panels, no pics of the fix itself but it's pretty basic. The little plastic studs on the grab handle that go through the panel board and have push nuts on the back, these are very often broken, causing people to do all kinds of ugly hacks to get their handle re-attached. The '93 I recently picked up had a huge self tapper with a fender washer jammed up against the rear corner of the handle.

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I drilled small holes into the backside of the handle's plastic housing and used a couple small self tappers through the back of the panel. Quick, easy, and pretty sturdy. And you don't see any evidence of it from the front side.

Richard