Rehabbing slider door panel

[Crooked Designer]

Not sure how common of a problem this is, but I had an idea and it worked out, so thought I'd share.

If you're like me and you're getting in/out of your slider door in the rain, the inside panel of the slider is getting wet. My gutters are slightly deformed by my awning brackets, so water runs down the side by the back window. If it's raining hard enough you get water in between the door panel and door. (Alternate theory is my slider door window seal was leaking, but I've definitely had a wet inside of the door after getting in in the rain.)

I got a new panel last year and the fiber board inside is already falling apart on the back corner. This was my project to repair it.

The before:

The damage. Notice how the mdf is crumbling. This caused the panel to act more like cloth and got stuck several times sliding the door open.

Started by cutting out the damaged area. Slid a metal ruler between the vinyl and the mdf backing board to avoid cutting all the way through. Cleaned up the rest of the shredded material that was still glued on.

I had two scrap sheets of abs plastic laying around from a different project. The one with the notch was 3/16, so felt stiff enough to use for this. Glued it to the vinyl with upholstery spray glue. Then glued the edges to the back.

As the new piece of ABS plastic is butted up against the rest of the mdf board, it was pretty flimsy and I wanted to stiffen it up, so I glued a second piece of ABS over the joint. This was much thinner ABS, so it didn't create any noticeable difference in thickness of the panel, but made it much stronger. Still flexed, but didn't flop.

The original "invisible" retaining clips were never doing a great job of holding the back of the panel tight, so I opted for the longer ones that pass through to run down the back. These are actually much easier to install in this location as well. Good as new and fixed it using only stuff I had on hand. Beats spending another $200 on a replacement.

If anyone has any tricks to keep the inside of the slider from getting water behind the panel when the door is open while it is raining, I'd love to hear em. I know you could get an ABS panel which would be waterproof, but I like the OEM look on the 85.
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'85 Westy full camper, Subaru 2.5L, 5 speed SubiGears + 5speedbus shifter kit

[valvecovergasket]

nice work on the fix!

can you not lay down a thin vapor barrier before putting the panel down?
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MegaSquirt resource - SpitfireEFI.com

gone, but not forgotten: '83 tdi westy - swap thread

[Crooked Designer]

[valvecovergasket]

thats true, i forgot that window should be sealed... i wonder if the seal at some point along the way had gone bad and been replaced. and you were looking at damage done long ago.
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MegaSquirt resource - SpitfireEFI.com

gone, but not forgotten: '83 tdi westy - swap thread

[Crooked Designer]