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I am in the process of trying to glue some foam to the surface of the center vent door in preparation for reassembling the dash back into the car.
In the process of doing that I noticed the plastic center vent door is really warped. So where I was intending to glue a piece of 1/8 inch foam onto the surface of the door to seal it, on one corner of the door it is warped so badly that an 1/8 inch of foam won't come anywhere near to being enough to seal the door when it is in the closed position.
Anyone have any suggestions about what to do about this?
Should I just get some 1/4 foam and glue that to the the third of the door where the warpage is worst?
See warp on left hand edge of the door?
Last edited by JensenHealey; Feb 21, 2020 at 09:28 PM.
Just in case other's are interested here is a different picture of the center vent door assembly back side of door (side away from the interior of the car)
A couple of ideas. One would be to try to straighten and reinforce the door with something stiff like a section of aluminum L-channel. McMaster-Carr has a nice 1/16" thick 1/4"X1/4" L-channel. A 2-foot length is just $1.05 plus tax and shipping:
You could possibly pop-rivet the L-channel to the back side of the door. If necessary, you could cut 1/4"-wide slots in the reinforcement ribs so the L-channel could sit flat in direct contact with the back side of the door face for easy riveting (or gluing with plastic bonding epoxy).
Another idea would be to place the door on a flat metal pan with a weight of some kind to flatten it, and place this in the oven and try heating it at 150F and allowing it to cool under the weight. If that doesn't work, increase the temp in 50-degree increments until it does. Thermoplastics tend to have melting points of 500 degrees or more, but starting lower and working your way up would help avoid damaging the door with excessive heat. The only issue with this idea is that the door may just warp again, whereas reinforcing it might prevent re-warping.
A couple of ideas. One would be to try to straighten and reinforce the door with something stiff like a section of aluminum L-channel. McMaster-Carr has a nice 1/16" thick 1/4"X1/4" L-channel. A 2-foot length is just $1.05 plus tax and shipping:
You could possibly pop-rivet the L-channel to the back side of the door. If necessary, you could cut 1/4"-wide slots in the reinforcement ribs so the L-channel could lay in direct contact with the back side of the door face for easy riveting (or gluing with plastic bonding epoxy).
Another idea would be to place the door on a flat metal pan with a weight of some kind to flatten it, and place this in the oven and try heating it at 150F and allowing it to cool under the weight. If that doesn't work, increase the temp in 50-degree increments until it does. Thermoplastics tend to have melting points of 500 degrees or higher, but starting lower and working your way up would help reduce the risk of damaging the door with excessive heat. One potential issue with this idea is that the door may just warp again later on, whereas reinforcing it might prevent re-warping.
Warped center vent door
