Wanted to share my door panel repair with others. I recently purchased a 981 CS with warped panels. The drivers door was much worse than the passengers side and decided I needed to get that taken care of.

Step one was removing the door panels( obviously). I then used a pice of wood, metal straight edge, and straps to clamp the panels back into shape. Using a heat gun I warmed up the back of the panel making sure the plastic relaxed to original shape. I used a bit of epoxy on the end to join some of the tabs that had broken off when the panel deformed. I left the epoxy to dry for 4 hours before moving on the next step.

Once the panels had formed back to its original shape I used contact cement to bond the foam to the plastic. I removed the clamps from the panel before starting to apply glue. I know it seams like a step backwards but it will be necessary to pull the foam as far back from the plastic panel without damaging the foam or panel edge. There are two reasons I did this. Firstly the passenger panel was not as bad as the drivers but figured I needed to pull the rest of it away from the plastic because the factory glue would eventually fail. The second reason, contact cement sticks to itself and I do not want any parts of the foam to bond to the plastic until it was ready.

Once I applied the glue to both sides liberally I waited the 15 min for it to dry. I then folded the foam over the plastic starting from the inside edge of the panel working my way out to the outside. I made sure to pull the foam up and around the plastic matching the edge perfectly. I took my time with this step. I did not clamp the panels after the glue was applied the contact cement held instantly.

I’ll try and follow up after some time and see if the fix held up in the SoCal heat. I added a picture of both the products I used. Hopefully this helps someone in the future.

 

Great job! Bookmarking this thread for future use. I was lucky that my car had replacement door panels when I bought it few years back. Also, the ceramic tint on my windows helps a lot to keep it together as it does really great job on rejecting sun's heat.

 

Great job on the repair!

Does this happen more to cars that are exposed to higher temps on a regular basis? Is there anything that can be done to prevent this from happening? Mine look fine for now but need to do more research on this just in case.

 

2013 Boxster always garaged, lifted about 3/4 " hasn't got any worse in the past year..
Add to the list of "Things PORSCHE doesn't admit to"

 

Nice job.

 

thank you 👍

 

I did a quick fix double sided tape from 3M. It’s about 95%. I may do the glue someday when I get to it. But mine was the passenger side so I don’t really see it.

 

Thanx! Completely off topic. Are you able to share where you purchased your carbon fiber hood?

 

Thanks for this Andy, I did mine over the weekend and it came out just fine. Also installed the AWE deflectors and some sound dampening while I had them off.

 

Np, I’m glad it worked out 👍

 

Inquiring minds want to know.....

Why do these protestors get to use better glue on their hands than what Porsche uses on their door cards that delaminate?

 

And headlights too - don't forget those.

 

And the headliner

I like how Porsche did their part to comply with the eco terrorist demands to reduce their carbon footprint by turning the lights and heat off to the space they glued themselves to

 

Bet they didn't expect that....

Oh.... You need to take a leak... Please leave the building...

Oh... You can't.... Hah... Dummkopfd uDD

 

Came across this: