Hi all,
on my SII car vinyl cracks appeared in both right door cappings. Initial attempts of the PO to have them repaired professionally proved not to last - even though after several years - while new tears developed. My guess is that the first and long time owner parked the car at the road side in front of his south facing house thus damaging only the right side … In fact the vinyl covers are “pure” vinyl without any cloth carrier and - as it showed later, while the vinyl protected was still soft and strong the upper surface areas were hardened out.
Anyway, I decided to put new vinyl covers on them. On the internet I found a source for an ambla material very close to the original olive green colour (aka moss green, HDA) suitable for use in cars in respect of rigidity and fire-safety.
The job was done on two afternoons: The door cappings were removed as per the manual. The vinyl covers are glued and fixed by a lower chrome profile and another chrome profile at the glass trailing edge. The lower profile is press-fitted and it was easy to see that the profile wouldn’t fit over an additional layer of vinyl. So I decided to cut the original vinyl along the edges of the chrome profiles. The upper profile is riveted to the metal carrier (3.2 mm pop rivets). The lower profile came off with the help of a longish screw driver - just take care not to bend the profile in the course of pulling. The upper profile was drilled off.
Then I cleaned the door cappings and treated the metal carriers with some epoxy rustproofing and the chrome profiles with polish making them look brand new again.
The new vinyl was cut in rectangular pieces of appropriate size. I started glueing with contact cement from the lower edge vinyl to metal, fixed the edge with body clamps and continued glueing around the capping. Only the front and rear edge require a three-dimensional shape that I worked out with a hot air gun. Careful use of knife and glue are required to get around the corners as any multiple layers of the new vinyl would add too much depth. Finally, the upper chrome finisher is riveted back in place.
Upon reinstallation I’m very satisfied with the result. The colour is close enough that nobody would notice any difference without close attention. In fact the pictures overstate the difference - on the second pic the colour of the door capping is a perfect match with the front seat upper rear facing and in particular the difficult front and rear edges are straight enough not to worry me.
Most of all you need patience and warm weather to keep the vinyl flexible. At any rate it’s a job worth doing and really improving the appearance of the interior a lot.
Good luck
Jochen
75 XJ6L 4.2 auto (UK spec)