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Ebony interior

Goal: reattach original upholstery fabric to the backing board as it came from the factory.

To date:

Door panels removed, backing board removed.
Back of fabric and backing board thoroughly washed with Dawn and a flexible but stiff scrub brush to remove as much residual adhesive from both surfaces. Backing plate is essentially compressed fibers somewhat like what you see underneath carpeting, but much thinner. My point is it is not plastic, not cardboard, but fibrous and tightly packed.

Here is where I am at



The top is the fabric actually perfectly aligned with the backer board underneath.

The issue: took me 20 minutes to get it just right with no adhesive.

The fabric is slightly stretched towards the cut-out holes from the last time I tried to do this while the material was on the car.

People recommend 3M90, 3M77, and the whole host of other spray adhesives. The issue is that in all likelihood, the alignment of the fabric onto the backer board will need adjustment. 3m90 seems like it would be the perfect temperature resistant high tack contact adhesive. However, when you spray it and the two surfaces tack up, once the two items contact each other, that's it. You get one try with no readjustment possible.

Half of me wants to do this across the door panel in sections so that I can correct if it is going off kilter. The other half of me wants to have another set of hands and to try to do the four outer corners two at a time and then two at a time up and down, because you don't know that the spike at the bottom right is aligned until you get it there.

Attaching the fabric to the backing board is its own step. I will have to secure the backing board so that it absolutely does not move while attaching the fabric.

Gluing the upholstered backer board to the door is done rather simply with a glue gun.

Any recommendations on contact spray adhesives?

Note the difference between spray glues and spray adhesives.
Spray glues are used to glue two objects together. The glue is wet
Spray adhesives gets applied to both services to be bonded. They then set up for a specific amount of time after which you services are adhered together via contact.