Deluxe Door Panel Cup Black Metal Pair 1969

Today we're going to upgrade the interior on our '69 Mach I project car by replacing our beat door panels with these new panels from TMI, along with some pieces from Scott Drake. Your '65-'68 door panels are pretty easy to install. The '69 and '70, there's a lot more parts necessary, making them a little more involved. We're going to show you everything you need, and how to install it.

Door panels come in the correct textured finish, already have the carpet installed on the bottom, and all your holes are pre-drilled for all your accessory pieces. Door panels come with the door lock grommets and the inner belt line already installed. It's going to save us some time with our installation. For this installation you'll need a Phillips-head screwdriver, 1/4" ratchet, 9-mm socket, needle nose pliers, small pick, plastic pry bar, hammer, and a punch.

To say our original door panel's beat is kind of an understatement. See, it's pulling apart at the top here. Somebody tried to duct tape it in the past. e're warped down here. Our handles are falling off. It's got some after-market speaker grills that are barely even hanging on. It's time for some new door panels.

We're going to start by removing our after-market speakers. Now we're going to remove our window crank. We'll be throwing this one away since it's the wrong one for our car, and it's also broken. Now we need to remove the rubber cover from the bottom of our door cup. A little spot in the end here where you can get a pick in and just pull it up, and lift it out to access our screw. Now we've got to remove the bezel for our remote mirror.

Now we're ready to take off our door panel. On most door panels there's going to be clips on the outside edge holding the door panel in place. Like everything else on our door, they're all broken, so it's going to fall right off. You're still going to have your door courtesy light plugged in, so once you pull the panel off, you're going to reach behind and unplug it. Our door has some generic Dynamat on it, which we're going to leave it on the door, since it's not hurting anything. Now we're ready to assemble our new door panel so we can install it on our door.

We're going to steal just a couple parts off the old door panel. The mirror bezel's in pretty good shape, so we're going to keep the original. We're going to steal the retaining hardware for our light. You can see our panel is cracked in multiple places, covered with duct tape. Off to the trash where it belongs.

We're going to start by assembling the Scott Drake deluxe door panel inserts. The wood overlay comes in two different finishes, so it doesn't come installed to the panel. We're going to remove the protective plastic. We're going to remove our 3M backing. Carefully line it up on our insert. It's a perfect fit on the insert, so you want to make sure you get it lined up the first time. Now we're going to flip over the insert and open up our two holes for our door panel emblem. The next step is to install our door panel cup in the new door panel. So, we're just going to press this in place.

Now we're ready to install our inserts on our door panels. All these metal tabs? They go through the pre-drilled holes on the door panel. It might be a little work to get them to line up, but they will go through. Now we're going to flip the panel up and bend the tabs over. Now we're going to open up the holes a little bit that we poked through before and install our emblem. They are side specific, so make sure your horse is going forward. We install the nuts on the back here.

Now we install our door courtesy lights. They are side specific; the light goes towards the front. We'll put that through and then we'll flip it over and put the retainers on. Be careful not to over-tighten these, because they can strip pretty easily.

Now we're going to install the chrome door panel moldings. They install the same way our inserts do with these little tabs. We've got to bend them up and then put them through the door panel. The holes for the molding are in the carpet, so we're going to flip our door panel over and just open them up a little bit before we try to put the panel on. It's a little easier if you have the door panel slightly off your table. We'll start in the back and find one of our holes and push our tab through. Now we're going to flip the panel over and bend over our tabs. Some of the nylon may stick up just over it. Take it with a razor blade. Let's trim that area off. Now we'll install the bezel for our mirror.

We're just about ready to install our door panel. Since we're using the metal cups and they bolt to the bracket, you don't necessarily have to put a screw in here, but it's not a bad idea to either put a small rivet or a small screw, just to hold it in place.

Since our TMI door panels come with a new inner belt line already installed, we're going to replace the outer while we're here as well. We'll start by removing the retaining screw at the end of the door. Now we'll carefully pry out the clips that hold the belt line in place. Before you install your new outer belt line, you want to make sure where the tabs go, you flatten these out a little bit so they fit flush against your door. Now we're going to install our new outer belt line. Just line it up and press the tabs into place. Now we're going to mark the hole for our factory screw; we're going to drill a small pilot through our weather strip. Now we can reinstall our factory screw, and our belt line's finished.

Now we're going to install our water shields. We're going to hold them up using the door panel clip holes as a rough guide. It comes pre-cut out for most of the accessories. In our case, we're going to have to cut out around the control for our the remote mirror as well. These are pre-cut, so we're going to grab our razor blade so we can cut them out all the way. We have it trimmed that, so we're going to hold it up again. Now you want to install some strip cloth to hold the water shields on. The face is going to follow the edge of where the shield mounts on the door. You can space it out a little bit. You don't have to cover every inch with it.

We're going to install a new J clip on our factory door bracket. We'll install our door panel clips. Now there's six mounting holes that are going to take screws. We're going to punch through those first as well. Once we've punched our holes, we'll feed the screws back through and make it easier to find them later.

We're going to start by reconnecting our courtesy light. We'll start by getting the top edge on tight. Now we'll get our door panel clips in. Now we're going to install the door cup screw. Now we're going to install our new rubber insert at the bottom of our door cup, our window crank, put our bezel nut back onto our remote. If the screws don't line up, you may have to drill the hole. In the case of ours, we had a speaker here. We're just going to put one screw just in front of where the speaker was and drill the hole for it.

Once you've finished putting your door panel on, the last step is to put our new door lock knobs on. Put it over our door lock rod and thread it down. And our installation's complete.

Wow, what a difference. We don't have to be embarrassed anymore when we open the doors up on our Mach I. Installation will take you around an hour per side. She'll be back on the road in no time.