I recently picked up some new interior door panels and to my surprise they did not have the window felt attached to the top of the panel. I had several old panels to look at and the felt is attached with solid flat head rivets, which are cheap and readily available. Although the squeeze tool and dies to compress the rivets are way too expensive to justify buying them for 8 rivets. Ballpark of about $400 from McMaster.

I've read posts about using pop rivets but can't vision how that would work. The back side of the rivet would have to be fairly flat to allow the panel to hang on the top of the door. Or am I missing something?

Those of you that have done this successfully, what's the technique?

i dont know if you can use a dolly for body work,behind the rivet and hammer it flat

I've done lots of pop riveting. the front looks like a washer with a nail thru it. the tool sucks up the nail and make the back of the washer flare. when it reaches a certain tension, it snaps off the nail. the front looks cosmetically clean, but the back is crumpled metal and not flat and smooth. For those pieces, the back is probably 1/8" thick. If you have the room, they will work fine. available in steel, aluminum and stainless. I have a good quality riveter if you want to borrow it.

Does this mean that the new replacement door panels sold by the vendors does not include this window felt? I would have thought that it would be included.

FiatMac wrote:Does this mean that the new replacement door panels sold by the vendors does not include this window felt? I would have thought that it would be included.

Well sadly your thoughts as mine would be incorrect. No big deal as the felt is available, just trying to find the best way to put them on.

Russ, I have a couple of good rivet guns, just looking for a way to have both the front and back of the rivet nice and flat, without spending a fortune to do it.

I'll wait for responses while stranded in the southern California desert until at least tomorrow.

here is a thought out of left field. leather workers have screws with "flat" bolts they use for belts and straps. dont know if they make them small enough for this application. I also dont have a clue of where to find such stuff.

Try and file the rivet flat.

John,
Where did you get your replacement felt strip?

ok try this
pop the rivet and push out the pin head
grab the largest pair of vicegrips and crush it a bit.joe

From Csaba and Ramzi at Auto Ricambi

124JOE wrote:ok try this
pop the rivet and push out the pin head
grab the largest pair of vicegrips and crush it a bit.joe

This is most likely what I will try after taking a dermel to it.

Thanks John! I didn't know that they carried it. Good to know.

John, have you looked into aluminum male/female bolts. Something like this, on the left: http://www.brassfast.com/brassaluminium ... screws.htm

I can get them at my local hardware store. The heads are FLAT, and I mean flat. You can get them in varying thickness, down to about 1/4" between the heads and if you file the female part down you can get them even closer together.

I used pop rivets (High quality gun and rivets cost less than $20) and then sanded\filed slightly on ones that looked nasty.

Worked fine.