After 24 years in the sun, the interior was in rough shape. It became clear that no reasonable amount of cleaning could rejuvenate the panels. Also, as is typical with P80 Volvos, the tan carpeting over a few years becomes pink.
I thought I would clean & repair the vinyl (where necessary) and then spray it with vinyl dye. I would need to find a way to get creative for the lower part of the door because no-one wants that terrible pink carpet on a nice new door.
Prep / Cleaning
My initial prep work for the top of the panel was to give a good soapy water clean and then use isopropyl alcohol to make sure the surface was good for dye adhesion.
The lower carpeted part, I scrubbed and cleaned with soap and it was clean but still didn’t look good.
Upper Panel coating experiment
With a separate set of panels, I wanted to see what the door panel was made of and if I could get creative and give it a fiberglass or carbon fiber coating or just paint it with an epoxy. The structural material seems to be a almost a pressure treated wood fiber board. It did not sand well and It was hard to get anything to adhere to it. I decided the best course of action was to just keep the vinyl wrapping.
Upper Panel Vinyl dye color trial
I wanted an earth color for the door panels. I chose SEM 15323, Palomino, Color Coat, Vinyl Paint hoping it would be more orangey (to match the new seats). It turned out to be far more olive/green than I expected from photos online.
Upper Panel Vinyl dye painting
I decided on SEM 15033, Saddle Tan, Color Coat, Vinyl Paint which looks great.
Lower Panel repair & reinforcement
The lower part of the door panel was made out of plastic and given the age of the panel there were many cracks and the mounting holes were mostly broken.
The rear side of the lower panel was sanded and fiberglass re-enforced. After the carpet was peeled off, the residual carpet adhesive was removed with a razor blade and water. At times, a heat gun and a steam cleaner (hot water) seemed to assist in the adhesive removal.
After adhesive removal, on the panel face, plastic molding holes were filled with epoxy and the panels received a full sand with 120 grit sand paper.
Lower panel paint
To replace the carpeting I decided to use PlastiKote 264 Black Truck Bed Liner. Which gave a high-contrast and rugged look and feel to the doors.
Door panel inserts
The existing inserts were comprised of leather stretched and stapled over a fiber card. As an upgrade, I found a slightly more rigid 1/8″ PVC sheet and used this with some Black Quilted Vinyl that had a 3/8″ foam backing.
Final
