thoughts door panels

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Joined
Feb 10, 2012
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Location
Sacramento
My Car
71 MACH1 m code

I have read about the horrors of fitting reproduction delux door panel to a MACH1. We have Dashes Direct door panels. Don't know what Don at OMS sells and haven't been able to reach him. Now we see MustangMarket on ebay that is trumpeting their door panels. Anyone have experience. Help



Jenny


 
the panels are not that bad, the issue is the amount of work you need to do to finish them and make them fit correctly.

the mustang market panels look exactly like the TMI ones, same ABS plastic backing board.

cost wise they are all the same in the 350$ range.

granted the oem panels are going to fit much better, the particle board backing sits better and has give to it. but the plastic will not get ruined when the water gets behind the water shields. the oem panels come more complete with trim and what not.

on the reproduction the best is using a Dremal hand tool with a carbide cutter and mark out on the plastic where you want the cuts to finish the door handle mounts and the door lever surround.

everything else you transfer over from the old door frame and make cuts for electric switches and speaker as needed. then there are small parts like the collar for the door lock that you buy NOS and install on the new repro panel, the window wiskers get replaced as well and you mark where to rivet them. it takes many hours to prep the cosmetics then once done you deal with the the mechanical mounts, each clip has to be adjusted and fitted and installed correctly and well seated, and don't forget the Foam anti rattle pads.

it is a lot of work but its cheaper then a original panel if you can even find an original panel in your color selection.

some people complained the reproduction panels are shorter then OEM but i had them side by side and they are not. many times people didn't seat the clips all the way in and make adjustments to the clip plastic cut outs so what happens is the panel sits too far forward and looks wrong, but you can adjust this.

i remember i had about 1 day for each door making final cuts and fitment to the reproduction panels.

this was in addition to a couple of days with the panels on the bench cutting and fitting all the additional parts and transferring parts from the original panels. so far its been 10 years and the panels are holding up fine.

 
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