W124, how to put vinyl back onto door pilar?
 

I took the door pilar column off to try to fix a lazy seatbelt. I was hoping to lube something, but didn't see anything to lube. Tried to put the hard plastic column back. There's some vinyl that goes behind the plastic part to give it a nice finish, but I can't get that back right. It's too short to put in on both ends, they must have done it one end at a time somehow. I'm sure there's a trick to it. Anyone know how to do this?

Thanks,

Jeff 1991 300d, 100k

Happened on both my 124's. I don't know of a way to fix it short of buying the material, cutting it out and maybe gluing it on. Auto upholstery shop should be able to handle it.

Similar to the loose material at the top of the door pockets problem. The factory simply didn't allow enough material to easily glue it down.

Steve

If you just try gluing, it's going to come off anyway due to the foam backing on the vinyl cover. What happens is you end up gluing the foam and it separates from the vinyl creating a big mess.

This is what I did on mine: Remove B-pillar (you will need to disconnect seatbelt at the floor). Carefully peel off vinyl covering. Use sewing machine to stitch a 1-inch strip of scrap fabric all the way around. Fabric is readily available from any fabric store, or even the Wal-Mart sewing section. If you don't have access to a sewing machine, you can stitch the fabric by hand. The stitches will be easily hidden after you reinstall the vinyl. To reinstall, stretch the vinyl over the plastic pillar, wrapping around tightly and using hot glue to secure the fabric to the plastic. Do one side first, allowing a couple minutes for it to dry completely, then pull tight on the other side and glue down.

My pillar still looks great and no signs of peeling.

I think you will have a better shot if you do it in a warm climate..or warm the vinyl up with a hair dryer.... it will stretch easier..

i think i used that 3m heavy duty spray glue...

Heating it will definitely help the vinyl to stretch, but on some cars the problem is that there is barely enough vinyl to cover the pillar, let alone wrap around. I think in some cases the vinyl has shrunken, causing a lack of material. In such cases, I believe sewing on extra fabric is the only "permanent" solution.

You could just stretch really hard and glue with 3M spray adhesive, but if the vinyl is under too much tension it will just separate from the foam backing and peel off anyway. I did this several times on my 300E until I did the fabric thing, and now it's in there for good.

I too was amazed that the material was just too small to wrap around the pillar. Perhaps it did shrink over the years, I don't know.

Any auto upholstery shop should have equivalent new material to replace what is there, if you don't want to go to the trouble of the stitching method already mentioned.

They will also have spray contact cement made just for this purpose.

Pillars
 

I just had mine re-upholstered at a headliner shop...cost $40usd...I also have the same material problem with the door pockets also...

I have permanently fixed several 124 door pockets by using super glue (gel) and accelerator spray.
I never had one separate afterwards.

They usually have theese items at Radio Shack.

How did they do it at the factory?
 

Too bad they don't keep videos of people working certain parts of the car when they were produced. That way, years later, you could see how they did it. Yes, seems like there's not enough material, but also looks like they didn't use any glue. I think what I'll do is either wait til summer as the heat thing sounded really good, or figure out some way to heat it up, then stretch it.

Thanks,

Jeff 1991 300d, 100k