Door trim -Re-trimming

This is a very fiddly and time consuming project.

I advise that you only start with one door, and complete it and test fit it to the car before starting the others. The test fit is very important, it's the part of the project that is most likely cause headaches. If everything doesn't sit nicely in the car, or you can't get the window winder back on, you will need to make some adjustments.

If you try working on all 4 at once, you may find that you've done something wrong, or something may not look the way you want it to, and if this happens it's better if you only have to try and fix one stuff up rather than 4!

What you'll need

To disassemble the door trim (also known as door card) you will need the following:

• Phillips head screwdriver
• Flat head screwdriver
• Pliers
• Quick un-pick

To reassemble the door trim, you will need the following:

• Fabric of your choice, you will need about 3 metres
• Dacron wadding - available from Spotlight, or thin foam -available from Clark rubber
• Phillips head screwdriver
• Flat head screwdriver
• Staple gun + 6mm staples
• Scissors
• Hobby knife
• Cardboard spacers (this will be explained later)
• Gaffer tape (optional, but always handy!
• Spray adhesive
• Contact adhesive (I used Selleys Kwik Grip, but ran out when I was almost finished, scoured the shed for more glue, and found some "Tweetens ten minute cement" ...... the tube says it's the strongest in the world!
• Sewing machine or needle
• Cotton to match your colour fabric
• Dressmaking chalk
• Newspaper
• Metal skewer
• Dust mask (optional)
• A container for the screws you remove
• A bin for all the stuff you'll be throwing out.

Staples, explained

Nissan used tiny staples when they assembled these trims. The original staples are only 2 or 3mm. I was unable to find any staples that small, I was told time and time again that they don't come any smaller than 6mm. I didn't discover this until AFTER I'd taken everything apart! So to solve the problem, I cut up a heap of corrugated cardboard into little rectangles, and used them as spacers. The spacers aren't important on the top section of the door which sits under the vinyl capping, but if you don't use spacers when stapling the fabric from behind, the staples will poke through and stab your passengers (and yourself) and little holes will start opening up where the staples poke through. There is a bit of trial and error involved, I had to use 3 cardboard spacers for each staple, any less than 3, and the staples still poked through. The amount of spacers you will need will depend on how thick your cardboard is.

Removing the door trim

Remove the door trims, as shown in the Door trim -Removal article.

Out with the old

If you have courtesy lights in your trims, undo the screws, remove the light, and put it somewhere safe.

Turn your door trim over, and undo all the screws, and put the vinyl capping and map pocket somewhere where they won't get covered in glue. Put all the screws in a container so you don't misplace any! Remove all the staples. I tried a staple remover, but it was much easier to slide the flathead screwdriver under the staples and pry them up. Some may not want to come all the way out, once you've lifted them a bit, use the pliers to pull them the rest of the way out.

When you've removed all the staples, peel the fabric and the padding off and throw it in the bin. Put the masonite to the side, and move on to the arm-rests.

Arm-rests

Unscrew the soft part of the arm-rest from the plastic backing. Remove the staples from the arm-rest. These staples are a little bit harder to remove than the other ones, the underside of the arm-rest where the staples sit is made of hard plastic, and it's easy for the screwdriver to slip.... just take your time and be careful not to stab yourself. Peel the fabric off, and unpick the seams on each side. You will be using this as a template.

This is what the arm-rest cover looks like. All 4 arm-rests are the same. Flatten it the best you can (I wouldn't recommend ironing it, even on a low heat I think it would melt). Before you mark out your patterns, have a good look at the fabric. Cut a little sample swatch off, and have a play with it, familiarise yourself with the way it moves. See if it stretches more in one direction than it does the other. Then have a look at your t-shirt..... really! Notice how the lines run up and down? It will stretch easier from side to side due to the weave of the fabric. If you have chosen a stiff fabric, this won't really matter. If you have chosen a softer fabric, the "stretch factor" could have some bearing on the end result. Lay your template on the fabric, get the chalk, and draw a line around it, and cut it out. You will need to cut 4 of these. Once you've cut them out, grab your tamplate again, and check out where the old seams were. Sew along these lines. Due to the stretch in my fabric, I had to move the seams a little closer together. Only sew one at first, then test fit it. You may need to move your seams, which means unpicking all your hard work, if you have to do this, it's much easier to only have to do it once! When you're happy with the seams, pull the fabric over the arm-rest, and make sure the open end of the seam points to the ground, otherwise it will sit on the upward facing part of the arm-rest, and it will look lumpy. When you're happy with it, staple it into place. Take care putting these staples in, they can slip on the plastic.

Put the arm-rest insert back into the plastic backing, and replace the screws. You should have something that looks like this. Now you need to do that all over again, 3 more times.

Door card

Before moving on to this next stage, clean up your work area. You're going to get the spray adhesive out in a minute, and it gets in the air and sticks to everything... (including nose hairs, you may want to wear a dust mask!)

Put a few layers of newspaper down on your work surface, it's easier to use a few layers, then you can remove a layer each time you move on to a new door card, or you may prefer to spray them outside if you have pets. Lay the masonite on the table, with the side that the fuzzy stuff came off facing upwards.

If you're using dacron, you may need to split it. This takes a little patience, but if the dacron is too thick, it will puff the door trims out too far, and you will be left with impressions in the fabric where the window winder sits. (I learned this one the hard way, and had to start all over again)

If you're using thin foam, you should be good to go. Put your dust mask on (if you have one) and spray the masonite. It doesn't need to be soaked, just spray enough on there to tack the dacron/foam in place. Lay the dacron/foam over the masonite, and squash it down. If you've used too much adhesive, it may seep through, so try not to go overboard with spraying. Once you've attached the dacron/foam cut around the edges. Give the top side of the dacron/foam a light spray of glue. Remove a layer of newspaper so you've got a clean work surface again.

Lay your fabric with the underside facing upwards. Lay the door card on the fabric, and cut around it, make sure that you leave enough to fold and staple. On the first door card, I recommend that you leave more overhang than you really need, by the time you move on to the others you'll have a better idea of how much overhang is actually needed. If you cut the fabric with a tiny overhang, the fabric could start to fray while you're working with it, and you don't want this to happen. A large overhang is fine, nobody will see it.

Now that you've cut around the edges, turn the door card back over so it's fabric side up. Grab the vinyl capping , and check out where it sits... you need to make sure you don't put any staples in the area which will be visible below the vinyl capping. Start in the middle, and staple towards the edges all the way along the top, keeping tension on the fabric as you go. (If you have stretchy fabric, just try to keep it flat, you don't want it to stretch at this stage.) Be aware that if you don't use spacers when stapling the top section, the staples will poke through, but that's fine, nobody will see the back of the door. Turn it back over again, and now the tedious part begins.

Fold the overhang up and over to check where you need to put the adhesive. Smear some contact adhesive along the bottom of the door, and let it get tacky. The adhesive is important at this stage, if the staples are the only thing holding the fabric in place, they could eventually move around and pop out, and you'd have to go through this all over again! Be sure to use glue in conjunction with the staples. When the adhesive is tacky, it's time to grab your spacers and your staples. Starting in the centre, pull the fabric so that it's taut, (you want it to be firm, but not over stretched), and start stapling. I left the little black studs which press into the door frame in place for this process. If you remove them, you could end up covering the holes where they sit. Lift the fabric, check where the studs sit, you may need to cut around them as shown below.

When you've finished stapling the bottom section, move on to the sides. Same process as above, glue and staple ths sides. When you've done that, you should have something that looks like this:

Carefully cut the dacron/foam out from all the areas where it's visible. You will need to pay particular attention to the hole where the window winder sits. If there is too much padding near the window winder hole, you won't be able to push the window winder back on far enough for the clip to engage, and your window winders will pop off while you're driving along.

When you've cleared out all the holes, it's time for more cutting. I used a farily delicate fabric, and was worried that it might fray if I tried to jab a knife/scissors through it at this stage, so I went into the kitchen, got a metal skewer, turned the stove on, put an oven mitt on, heated up the skewer, and melted a hole into the centre of each section which was going to be cut.

You're up to the finishing stages now, so you want to pull everything as tight as you can.

The rectangle holes where the door handle and courtesy lights sit should be cut diagonally from corner to corner. You will need to lift the existing foam around the door handle with a hobby knife so you can get your fabric to sit beneath it as shown below. Glue and staple.

With the speaker hole, poke your scissors through the hole you melted in the centre, and cut towards the edge of the speaker hole so you end up with lots of little flaps of fabric that look like a sliced pizza. Fold them back one at a time, each time moving to a slice diagonally oposite to the one you just finished to keep the tension as even as possible. Glue and staple, then cut off the daggy bits.

You will also need to put tiny snips where the speaker screws sit. I cut some small bits of tape and taped the bits of fabric around the hole to stop the screws from pulling on the fabric. It's OK if the tape goes around to the front, providing it's only a small amount, it will be covered by the speaker surround.

The holes where the arm-rest screws on don't need to be cut/glued/stapled. The smaller the hole, the fiddlier the stapling job. The tape & melt option was much easier. I put some gaffer tape over the holes, pushed the tape down firmly onto the fabric, and used the hot skewer to melt clean circles in these 2 holes. Without the tape, the fabric could fray, or it could easilly become snagged on a screw and stuff up all your good work when you get to the final assembly stage.

The fabric near the courtesy light started to fray because the cuts were tiny, so I taped those up too, but there was an additional reason for the tape in this case. You will need to melt the holes where the courtesy light sits, this will weaken the tiny fabric flaps even further, so just tape them up to save any hassles.

Map Pocket

The map pocket is the easiest part of all. Stick your flathead screwdriver into the channel where the carpet sits, and flick the carpet up. Then grab the carpet, and pull it off. How easy was that!?! Give the plastic a squirt with the adhesive, and let it sit for a minute to get tacky. Make sure the bit of fabric you're working with has a flat edge. Lay the fabric on the plastic so that the flat edge sits at the top, then poke the fabric under the rim, and press down firmly on the fabric, you may get bubbles/ripples, that's OK, just lift it and try again. If you put it on as I explained (or tried to explain) the fabric should now be on the front and sides of the map pocket. Make some diagonal cuts from the bottom corners of the fabric, towards the bottom corners of the map pocket. You may need to make some extra cuts and maybe a fold... if you need to make a fold, be sure that it sits at the bottom so it can't be seen. Then fold the overhangs into the little channel.

Now it might seem like you're finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Final assembly

Screw the capping back on, screw the map pocket back on, screw the courtesy light on (be sure to MELT not cut these holes, cutting anything at this stage, even with a hobby knife, could be disastrous!) sit the arm-rest on top, and admire your work.

Finished!

Put the door trims back in the car, screw the arm-rest on, pop the window winder on, push the door lock surround and door handle surround back on, screw the speaker back in, and you're done!