I installed power windows and now the door panels have the hole for window crank. Is there anyway to fill this without a plug? Maybe some kind of plastic filler?
fiberglass
if you're really creative, you can get some plastic and melt it down. Cover the back of the hole with something, pour the plastic, and then sand it down. But that's more work than it's worth. Just fiberglass it. Or get door panels made for power windows.
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Interior FAQ -
J-Body of Michigan -
throw a tweeter in the hole!!!
"Peter Griffin: Brian, there's a message in my Alpha Bits. It says "OOOOOO".
Brian Griffin: Peter, those are Cheerios. "
i dunno about "melting plastic down"....but here's the proper way.
get some duramix 4058 paste. it's plastic filler/weld stuff. Mask the hold off on the front side, then fill the void up with the paste from the backside.
after that it'll already be smooth and flush, so you can just sand it down, and texture paint it, or vinyl it, or whatever kinda finish you have.
One tip though, the duramix is a 2 part paste, and requires a caulking gun for two bottles, the gun alone is like 70 bucks so you may want to ask around and borrow someones(ask some shops)
You can get duramix at your local auto body supply.
also this is how you should do any dash modification. it's SO much better then glassing on your dash or any other plastic that requires welding. They are about 20 bucks each.
Use the 4040 for plastic welds only...it's harder to sand so don't use it as a filler
Use the 4058 for a filler, use it just like you would bondo, building it up and sanding it down(for molding in screens in your dash..or other custom work)
Here's the gun
wysiwyg wrote:i dunno about "melting plastic down"
No reason it wouldn't work if you use the same plastic (i.e., a spare door panel). Unless you @!#$ up and heat the plastic too much.
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Interior FAQ -
J-Body of Michigan -
Raptor wrote:wysiwyg wrote:i dunno about "melting plastic down"
No reason it wouldn't work if you use the same plastic (i.e., a spare door panel). Unless you @!#$ up and heat the plastic too much.
that's not going to weld anything...it'll just be a blob of plastic sort of stuck to another blob, there will be no chemical bond, or mechanical bond, and will eventually fall off or seperate.
And if you heat it to the point that it is liquid, then try pouring that onto the door plastic, it'll melt the door plastic, and you'll have a disfigured mess of a situation.
Which, given the right amount of work, wouldn't be hard to fix. It just takes time.
As I stated before, it's more time than it's worth.
As far as "the proper way" goes, that would be not dicking around with custom fabrication at all and just purchasing door panels made for power windows. It's cleaner, requires less elbow grease, and looks just like it came from the factory (because it did). Problem solved.
I'll be in the same situation this summer, and I'm just going fiberglass it. It's easier to work with, and the materials and tools are more widely available. This is a simple job for fiberglass and it could be laid down in 20 minutes. Which would then give me plenty of time during the day to go take care of other things in the car that mattered (like re-routing intercooler piping).
Of course, a lot of people don't have the time to bother learning how to use fiberglass so I've been avoiding suggesting it as of late (even though it pretty much can do whatever you want it to do).
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Interior FAQ -
J-Body of Michigan -
20 min. to glass it....if time is an issue, using plastic weld only take 4 minutes to set up and be fulled hardened.
My example was simply that. An example. For a novice it'd be an hour job. For an expert, 5 minutes (tops) to lay the fiberglass. Time is
always relative when it comes to working on your car. Again, fiberglass is still more widely available and easier to work with. For the $90 it'd take to get you the gun and mix to use plastic welds, you could get enough fiberglass to make an entire
hood.
Since we're getting into the push and pull of cost and time again, I'm going to reiterate picking up a stock power window door panel. $30, a little leg work, and installs without a fuss.
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Interior FAQ -
J-Body of Michigan -
I looked today, they are surprisingly hard to find. All manual or 4dr.
Just reupholster and cover over the hole...that's what Im gonna do...
I borrowed the Duramix from the bodyshop at the dealership where I work. Used the 4040 to cover the hole and the 4058 on top. Seems to work pretty good. I still have to sand it though.
did you mask it with tape from the front, and fill from the back? that'd be the easiest, less sanding in the end.
good to see you did it the proper way...good job
Yeah, I masked the front, but it wasn't perfect so I used the 4058 to smooth out the imperfections. Should look good. Thanks for the help.
mark peters wrote:Yeah, I masked the front, but it wasn't perfect so I used the 4058 to smooth out the imperfections. Should look good. Thanks for the help.
cool..that's what it's for. 40/40 for welding, 40/58 use it just like you would bondo
I know this is a fairly old thread, but I thought I would post this comment incase someone did a search and found this. I don't know a ton about cars, but I do know a little about sound systems. Putting a tweeter in the location of the manual window crank hole is not ideal tweeter placement. I know that my knee lays right on top of that hole when I am driving. High frequencies are VERY directional and it will sound terrible with your knee covering it. Just my 2 cents.
when i do mine, i'm buying a cheap set of tweeters and putting them in there. not even hooking them up
The problem you may also run into when putting a tweeter in that hole is the mounting depth. The rod that your manual window crank used to connect to is right behind the surface of the door panel, thus giving you little to no room to flush mount a tweeter in that position. I originally thought about putting a tweeter there myself, but then the cons of that far outweighed the pros of filling that hole.
Tim Hanson wrote:The problem you may also run into when putting a tweeter in that hole is the mounting depth. The rod that your manual window crank used to connect to is right behind the surface of the door panel, thus giving you little to no room to flush mount a tweeter in that position. I originally thought about putting a tweeter there myself, but then the cons of that far outweighed the pros of filling that hole.
Wouldn't that rod be gone now since he has
Quote:
installed power windows and now the door panels have the hole for window crank
???? Is there still something in the way now?
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In my sunfire, i put some wheels of one of my jada diecasts. It fitted the right size and it don't look bad. Of course i choose a good looking set and they look like tweeter...didn't cost a cents so that work for me. Not the best idea i know but since i'm not a manual person, it was a easy solution.
And by the way, since the wheels came from a R34 skyline, it added 50hp to the motor so it's kind of cool to! lol
I haven't installed the power windows yet, so I am not sure if when installing the kit, you remove that metal crank. If you do, it is a viable option for a tweeter location (if you can keep your knee out of the way). Does anyone know if that metal crank is still there after a power window kit is installed? When looking at the power window kits, it looks like the motor is connected to a "chain" that is connected to that metal crank and that is what operates the window. It is possible though that you actually connect it somewhere else, that is just the way it looks. Anyone actually done this and knows?
