Photography by Tim Suddard
Sometimes you score when buying used parts, and sometimes, well, you don’t.
While our Corvette’s driver-side interior door panel was nearly perfect, we had a lot of cracks in the other one. We first looked at trying to fix this panel with a two-part epoxy, but we soon realized that between the grain of the panel and brittleness of the material, this solution would be temporary at best. We would need a new door panel.
While new door panels are available and very well replicated, they are not inexpensive. A pair costs roughly $1300 from suppliers like Corvette Central, but you do get to choose your colors and options.
Before we bit this bullet, we decided to look around on Facebook Marketplace. To our amazement, we found a set 3 miles from our office and picked them up for just $550.
C2 Corvette door panels vary by year, and we knew that going in: 1963 and ’64 use one design, 1965 and ’66 use another, and 1967 gets a third. Plus, the coupes and convertibles each have their own designs.
We had inadvertently been led to believe we were buying door panels for a coupe. When we finally got around to installing them, we found that not to be the case. (The top of the convertible panel has a chrome strip all the way across the top, while the coupe’s panel is cut out to accept the rear post.)
It was too late to contact the seller, so we’d have to sell them and find the correct ones.
Stubborn as we are, we tried once more to find the correct panels on Marketplace. Thankfully, there are a lot of other people playing with C2 Corvettes, and we found another set of new Al Koch reproduction white panels for a coupe only about an hour from home. This time, however, we took one of our door panels with us and confirmed that things were correct. This time the price was $500.
Now, finally, we could begin the job of replacing the door panel. Removal is quite straightforward.
First, we needed a clip tool to remove the clips securing the door lock, window winder and quarter window levers. This tool is readily available at any body shop supply place and grabs both sides of the clip to slide it off the attachment post.
[Instead of buying a new window regulator, we fixed ours]
Next, we needed to remove the screws securing the pull handle as well as the screws that hold the armrest in place.
There are five clips that slide into the panel, mostly along the bottom of the door, that also need to be unscrewed. Before reinstalling these clips, we scuffed and repainted them.
We then cleaned out the inside of the door with both a vacuum cleaner and compressed air. We then lubricated all the mechanisms with light grease.
The moisture barrier that fits between the door and the panel was missing. We cut a new piece from a plastic garbage bag and glued it into place.
Then, finally, we got to work on the door panel. Using the right-size punches, we carefully made mounting holes for the handles as well as the screws that secure the panel. When we didn’t have punches quite big enough, we made a pattern with a coin and then cut the hole with a sharp utility knife.
We cleaned the knobs and handles with ultra-fine #0000 steel wool and then began the reassembly. With the painted clips in place, we used an awl to find the holes and started attaching the panel. Everything fit well, and once finished, we had a new door panel that looked good as new.
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