Door panel refurbish

[pushkick]

Iam in the process of changing door panels & the old masonite (presswood board) has deteriorated & warped. So i was looking @ abs but it has a high flamability and toxic fumes. So i was looking at masonite & sealing it with some moisture protectant. Or boltaron 4335 plastic sheet or fiberglass reinforced plastic (fbr board). Any suggestions ?
Sewfine sells new panels with masonite but not moisture protected so i would have to seal. Sewfine will sell just panel covers but attaching to fbr or boltron could be an issue.
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[Jake de Villiers]

I'm in the process of re-assembling my van after having extensive bodywork. The warped Masonite straightens out very nicely: lay a cloth wet with hot water on the affected area for ~five minutes, then clamp flat overnight.

With the slider and hatch panels I clamped and glued on 1/4" Luaun plywood with Titebond, being careful with the positioning. Spray glue around the edges to bond the loose vinyl. They have never looked so straight!!

There is supposed to be a polyethylene film glued to the front doors to keep the door panels dry.
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[DuncanS]

Luan will work just fine and so will birch plywood. Neither of these is waterproof, but it shouldn't matter. One advantage of the stiffer plywoods is you need fewer attachments to the tin.

There are a ton of topics about this. It's pretty simple. Lumber yard, a Sharpie to trace around the old ones and Joanne Fabric or material of choice and hand it in.

[SyncroHead]

I'm in the process of attempting to remove the vinyl from the cracked, broken, warped old panels to transfer it to a new panel I plan to make from hardboard. So far, I've found the vinyl sections peel up from the original hardboard pretty well, but not the velour inlays. I set it aside and will continue to attempt the velour sections one of these days. For those with simple 100% vinyl coverings, it seems like you should be able to keep the original vinyl and look on new panel hardboard pretty easily.

Jim Davis
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[DuncanS]

The valour has been heat welded by pressing the vinyl down and making a permanent bond to the masonite. It can not be removed in one piece from the front. If you want to keep the vinyl and velour intact, you have to grind the masonite down from the back and carefully sneak up on the weld line. The place where the vinyl and velour join is where the weld is. The velour is not bonded except for those areas. It may not be worth it to preserve 30 year old dirty velour. You can achieve the same look with new materials by doing cutouts. If that's something you're interested in, I'll be happy to elaborate with sketches.

Duncan