Butterscotch Door Panels

[JT70]

After being absent for many years, I am rejoining the Z community.  I had some work issues and then some serious health issues that halted my progress on getting my 70 240 back in shape.  Before I parked it, I had the mechanicals in pretty good shape and was getting ready to start on the interior.  My Z has the Racing Green exterior with the butterscotch interior.  A previous owner had the door panels and seats reupholsted in a tan\cloth combo that may have looked good at the time, but (no surprise) it did not wear very well and I would like to go back to the butterscotch door panels and seats covers.  I have had good luck with sourcing everything but the door panels.  Seems no one has the butterscotch door panels in stock.  My existing door panels are likely not salvagable, I could buy some new black panels and new butterscotch skins, and have the black vinyl removed and replaced with the butterscotch skins, but then I still need a chrome strip.  Is it possible to salvage the chrome strip from the black vinyl?  This seems like it would be expensive.

Any thoughts on where I can source some butterscotch door panels?

Thanks

[Namerow]

The chrome strip is heat-bonded to the main vinyl sheet.  I don't think there's any way it can be peeled off.  You might be able to slice it off with a razor knife, I suppose, but that would only be feasible if you do the cutting with the vinyl still in place on the door card.  You'd be cutting through the heat-bonded area of the vinyl, so extra-thick and extra-tough.  There's a foam-ish backing sheet you'll be slicing through, too.  A ragged cut line is going to show afterwards.  I would rate chances for overall success at 10% or less. 

As for re-skinning the door panel, it can be done, but it's not easy to do it right.  The width of the hem that stretches around to the back side of the door card is only about 1/2" (narrows down to only 1/4" in places), so there's not much bonding area for glue.  A poor glue joint means that the vinyl is going to start to sag over time, making it look low-grade (and possibly even coming loose around the edges).

The factory didn't use glue at all.  They used shallow upholstery staples, spaced out at intervals of about 1" in the easy areas and clustered much closer together in areas where the vinyl has tucks and folds.  The staples provide a mechanical join, meaning that the vinyl can be stretched taught during installation and won't give over time.

For my car, I took vinyl that was in better shape off another car and installed it on my better-condition door cards.  I used regular staples but had to trim the legs down from the standard 1/4" to the necessary 1/8" first (tedious job).  Because they wouldn't fit a stapler or staple gun, they had to be individually hammered in.  I discovered that they wouldn't go in without first drilling pilot holes (2 per staples, that is).  It was a l-o-o-n-g job, but I'm very happy with the end result.

I'm pretty sure that one of the mainstream Z parts vendors offers replacement vinyl door skins in butterscotch, complete with the bonded-in chrome strip.  Try Mike at Banzai Motorsports.

You could also go with leather, rather than vinyl.  Not sure whether you'll find a good color match for the OE butterscotch interior, though. 'Tan' is probably as close as you'll get.

Edited June 2, 2020 by Namerow

[JT70]

Namerow thank you for pointing me in the direction of Banzai Motorsports.  I talked to Mike and those door panel skins are not available now but may become available at some point several months down the road.  I am going to check back in with him (per his suggestion) in a month.

[YZFMax]

There is someone selling butterscotch interior parts here in Toronto:

https://www.kijiji.ca/v-other-auto-parts-and-accessories/mississauga-peel-region/datsun-240z-butterscotch-interior-parts/1504501019?undefined

Just fyi

[JT70]

Thank you YZFMax, I will check them out.