Doors

Well, I have begun reassembling the doors on my '87 after getting it painted. A couple of observations:

I have the rivets in the doors welded up, after I deleted the cladding. The backside of these spots was not treated with any paint or anything. I sanded them and painted the backside. Something to think about if deleteing cladding and filling the door holes.

Second, I used Richard Curtis's recommended mar-hyde sating trim paint on the door handles, and they look great. Much better than the faded plastic look that they had before.

I pulled off the "weatherstrip" around the window glass. I call it weather strip, even though I think that is more the name for the foam rubber stuff that the door seal against. Anyways, they were very dry and crusty. I figured that I would have to hunt down some new ones, but once I washed them in some soapy water, they sprung back to life. The dry crusty appearance was just dust and dirt stuck in the felt (the car was REALLY dirty when I bought it.) I would rate this as a pretty easy job, and it might make your windows run easier if they are having a hard time going up and down. You would probably have to take off the mirror trim to get at it, but it is still an easy job.

I bought some spray lithium grease at Kmart and lubed the window rollers and the little tiny "tubes" that the door mechanism rods actuate thru.

Question is: Anything else that I should do before I button up the doors again. Anything that I might want to do to window motors themselves ?

BTW, I found a halfway melted connector in the passenger door. I also have done my special "make the car feel a lot better built for $.50 trick. That is, separate the two halves of the door handles, then glue them together. These two parts should never have to be separated (just easier to manufacture.) What I am talking about it the "door pull." When the two halves are glued together, they don't compress in your hand and feel cheap. This is super easy, and independent of anything else written above.