LMC Door Panel Quality

[GoAWOL]

I'm looking for opinions on the quality of the LMC Door Panels shown below. I'm fully aware that most repro stuff (especially from LMC) is of less than OEM quality but I would like to know if it's entirely a waste of money or if it will work with a bit of tweaking. To be honest, the OEM ones are not that great looking either..

appreciate any feedback.

 

[GoAWOL]

Different route on door panels

Alrighty, couldn't get an opinion on the LMC door panels so I decided to repurpose my original ones. It also helped when Chief Brody kinda hinted I was dumb to spend the money on LMC ones if I had perfectly fine ones in the first place. So after Chief sent me Ryoken' instructions on prepping the original door panels, I got busy.

First, I ordered the proper paints, cleaning materials, and bought some vinyl from Hobby Lobby.

I cleaned up the original doors and metal trim pieces using the following instructions.

clean with warm soapy water
use degreaser and wash again
then use maroon 3M pad to scuff the entire painted surface
wipe down with denatured alcohol (no degreaser)
let dry
paint in thin see through coats (That is critical...it will crack on you if you don't)


My focus was to change the door color from blue to black and cover up that horrendous fake wood pattern that was hot in the 70's.

 

[GoAWOL]

more pics

I believe I was fairly successful in re-purposing the door panels to something a little more visually appealing and functional to boot.

I have to say, that SEM paint performed as advertised. The plastic drank it in and coverage looks pretty complete without any issues. We'll see how long it holds up.

Still working on the actual door itself. I hung the door panels just to get a feel for how they would look.

 

[ryoken]

looks good. I find heavy wear areas need to be redone or at least touched up every couple yrs or so... a dash pad lasts forever...

 

[GoAWOL]

looks good. I find heavy wear areas need to be redone or at least touched up every couple yrs or so... a dash pad lasts forever...

Thanks Paul, I'm pretty pleased with the outcome myself. We'll see how long that vinyl holds up in that area of the door but I figure to get a few good years out of it.

Speaking of the dash...working that in the next few weeks. The original one is a big mess and I may try to fiberglass it up like some of the threads I've seen.

 

[Chief Brody]

Looks good and you saved lots of money.

I too am wondering how mine will hold up in the sun with no top...but I will cross that bridge if I ever get to it...

 

[Chief Brody]

My focus was to change the door color from blue to black and cover up that horrendous fake wood pattern that was hot in the 70's.

Well....one man's "wood" is another man's...well you know what I mean...the fake wood you dislike is the very thing I was trying to preserve.

 

[GoAWOL]

Well....one man's "wood" is another man's...well you know what I mean...the fake wood you dislike is the very thing I was trying to preserve.

My apologies Chief! Didn't mean to chum up the water you're swimming in.

I suppose if my faux wood looked as good as yours I'd probably run with it but I'm digging my Hobby Lobby vinyl.

 

[Chief Brody]

My apologies Chief! Didn't mean to chum up the water you're swimming in.

I suppose if my faux wood looked as good as yours I'd probably run with it but I'm digging my Hobby Lobby vinyl.

in case you missed it in the thread....I thought it was real wood...I bought Homer Formby's Minwax and everything...felt like an idiot when they told me it was plastic....

 

[GoAWOL]

in case you missed it in the thread....I thought it was real wood...I bought Homer Formby's Minwax and everything...felt like an idiot when they told me it was plastic....

I didn't catch that but I can relate. I thought the wood was a part of the metal and I could simply sand it off...not so much. It's some kind of application of wood looking gunk on top of the metal. I spent 10 min getting no where trying to sand it off before I figured out to put some vinyl over it.
I'm curious to see the procedure on how they get that wood look on the metal.

edit: found some info on wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodie

 

[GoAWOL]

Looks good and you saved lots of money.

That's a fact. Saved an easy $300. Thanks again for the sanity check.

 

[6872xtc]

Looks good! Thanks for the inspiration!

 

[Teck]

Well....one man's "wood" is another man's...well you know what I mean...the fake wood you dislike is the very thing I was trying to preserve.

3m make a product that has a wood look, its called 3m di-noc. You can apply it to almost anything.