Door cards/leather panels

Apologies for the lack posts recently, but a pending house move has taken it's toll on the Cobra build!

Door cards

The door cards are the leather covered door trims. The leather is mounted on thin MDF and has holes pre-drilled for the clips and door handle spindle. The latter's position is not obvious at first! The hole is the one with the arrow in the photo below.

Rear of door card

The clips to fix the cards were green things, located in a bag in the door card pocket. I put masking tape on the door first, then offered up the card. I cut out the hole for the door spindle carefully, removing the foam. Some people use a hole punch here. The clip was inserted into the relevant hole in the door card. It was then marked on the back with black marker pen. This then transferred to the masking tape to give a hole centre to drill in the door (7mm).

First hole drilled

This was repeated for the other clips, working along the top first, until all the holes were drilled and the card could be clipped in place. This is simply a case of pushing the clips with a thumb until it clicked. This left indentations in the leather that soon recovered.

First card in place

On the first door the door card lined up fine. On the second, I didn't check it properly and found that it overhung by a couple of millimeters and fouled the lock. That was after I had fully fitted it. Here I had to refit the piping a little to avoid the lock. So if you are doing it check this out before you drill any holes in the door!