Door Panel Carpet Replacement

[briannabp]

I am looking to remove the small carpet strips along the door panel of my 1999 Mustang. I was planning on cutting and gluing in red vinyl strips or even a matte vinyl decal in place of the carpet but the door panel has holes in it. Any ideas on how to make it look good? The carpet strips are falling off and I'd rather update the door panel than just glue the ugly carpet strips back down.
Thanks.

 

[mransr]

like this?

Unfortunately while it looks OK in pictures it wasn't great in person and I'm still trying to work out a way to do it right. :-/

 

[briannabp]

Yes! That is exactly what I would like to do. That looks awesome! How did you do that? I would like to try a couple things and if nothing works I'll just glue the original carpet strips back on.

 

[mransr]

I just used the carpet as a pattern to cut the fabric and then glued it on with 3M spray adhesive. But it didn't look very good, there needs to be some sort of backing between the material and the uneven surface of the door. Plus the gap around the fabric is way too large and needs to be filled with welting or something...I wasn't happy with it all and took it off. I am still trying to come up with a good way to do it :-/

 

[trombonedemon]

I hate you because you have a garage, meh!! On a side not, you are your worst critic, that contrast looks awesome!!

 

[briannabp]

I was wondering if there would be a gap. I was thinking of cutting a thin piece of plastic to fit in the door then wrapping the plastic with fabric before gluing it back on the door. My other thought would be using maybe a styrofoam filled poster board instead, then maybe it would sit even with the rest of the door panel and I won't have to worry about a gap. I would like to use red vinyl from the fabric store to match the exterior and I might also replace the carpet in the rear window deck with red vinyl.

 

[mransr]

No, I love the look and the color (and it matches the stripes in the Mach 1 seats too ), but it just looked pretty crappy in person. It was very uneven and the unfinished edges were way too visible. I tried using rubber windows screen spline to fill the gap and it actually looked pretty good but I couldn't get any adhesive to stick to it for very long.

I think that foam core might be a reasonable backing. I had thought about using 1/8 plywood but I haven't come up with a way to mount it that I'm happy with.

sigh...I guess I need to spend some time and get it sorted out now.

 

[MoneygrubbinCar]

Hah, Im soon to be tackling the same project as you and we're close to being on the same page. My next bet was gonna be testing my luck with a small layer of foam fill and shaving it down to where I could get a flat surface to work off of and glue a piece of fabric to the foam fill and then plastidip over that with a color of my choice. I would basically be shooting for taking away that small lip where that carpet seats into the panel.