PY Online Forums - Bringing the Pontiac Hobby Together

If you have the '72 and later plastic lower door panels that are warped at the map pockets, I thought I'd post this fix in case it will help someone. Mine were warped out away from the door about 1/2" to 3/4" in the inner wall of both of the front and rear pockets. I tried everything from glueing wood sticks to the back, to hand shaping with a hot blow dryer, to adding 2 part cement to the back of the warped panel for stiffness, all with no luck. What finally worked was simply using a large space heater and stuffing shop towels into the pockets to reverse the bulge. Here is a pic...

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1.../DoorPanel.jpg

I used the rags in the pocket to slightly reverse the curve and make it bulge back toward the door. Then I set the heater on high and propped the the backside of the panel about 1" away from the grill for about 2-3 minutes. When the backside of the plastic on the pocket was hot enough to scald my finger I took the panel away from the heat and moved it to a cold area to cool, with the rags still in place. You may need to hand shape the top edge of the pocket a little at this point to get it back towards straight while its still hot. Then leave the rags in place with just enough pressure on the pocket to keep it straight all night and let it cool completely.

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e1...PanelAfter.jpg

It will be interesting to see how these hold up to the heat of summer but so far they look much better and seem to want to stay in the new position. Now I just need to redye them, they could use some SEM Landua Black.