I went to open my door and when I pulled on it the window had froze due to freezing rain and my door skin popped loose about half way down the seam by the handle. Do I need to remove the complete skin or just repair the seperated area? What type of glue do I need? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Dan

 

My 93 did this.
From what I have seen it is common with 93-95 cars.
I tried several things. Liquid nails seemed to work best, but still didn't hold forever.
I am sure there is a better way, someone chime in!
I think this is something that we will all run into sooner or later with our 4th gen cars.
Good luck
Dave

 

this is a realtively common thing unfortunately, it want's to seperate there and up at the top front corner of the door, It happens at the front of the door because of letting the door swing open and "bounce" when it gets to the end of the hinge travel, repeated hard pulls on the extremes of the door eventually break apart the urethane adhesive.

If it's not too bad, and in a relatively easy place to get to your local body shop or the dealer can take car of it for around $30.......I believe that's wat I was quoted. If you decide to do it yourself you can use a urethane adhesive, it should be available at any body shop......O'reillys or autozone or Pepboys might even be able to get it for you. It should come in a caulking tube

You will want to get a utility blade or maybe a razor blade and scrape away alot of the old adhesive, then cut the tip off of it and squirt some along the seperated seam. wipe off the excess and then get a clamp and some some cloth, put the cloth between the clamp and the door and tighten it down so that it holds it tight (not too tight or you'll crack the door) leave it like that until it says it should be dry, or until "holding strength" and then remove the clamps, prob around an hour would be suffiecent.
good luck!!!

 

I went down to the dealer and they want 15.00 for the parts and 120.00 in labor to repair a 12 inch split in the seam. Going to look for the glue myself now.

Dan

 

thats a dealer go to a body shop dealers charg 65 ahour they are a rip. body shop i am sure will give you a deal.

 

i used like 3m structural adhesive from a body shop and its still on fine

 

yeah very common, call the gm parts guy and ask them if you can buy some of the adhesive they use, its like $12.

 

OUCH!! that's pricey LOL!!!

The adhesive is pretty cheap though, I would imagine they were quoting you a price for removing the whole door skin and reglueing the whole thing on.

It's not hard to do, you should be able to easily do it, and the adhesive is the same stuff they use to affix windshields if I'm not mistaken.

Might alos look for the structural adhesive previously mentioned, hope it goes well

 

how often does that happen?

 

depends on how you treat your doors, if you swing them open and let them "bounce at the end of hinge travel it's going to happen alot quicker than if you don't let them swing like that.

My cars a 94, so around 10 years old, at this point both doors have come apart at the seams in the last three years I've owned it.

 

I have a 94, I bought some bonding glue from Auto Zone last year and it still works fine, was only $2