311 Door Panel Clip Tech Section
Looking for those elusive door panel clips that are available but pricey. There are several solutions.
First, Mark Bangert has found a solution. Read on if you are interested.
Napa part #665-1103 worked great after a bit of modification. I bought a bag of 22 which was enough for both doors. They were less than a quarter a piece. Modification was twofold:
- All clips needed to be narrowed on the end that goes into the door, otherwise I'm afraid they'd never come out. I did that by squeezing them as far as possible with pliers.
- The 4 or 5 clips at the top of the panel had to have the part of the clip that goes in the door shortened otherwise they would hit the window. A strong pair of wire cutters worked great.
Second solution was submitted by caraddict aka Jon Frampton-
Just so happens that I recently restored a 65 Corvair convertible (go ahead and laugh) and I had some panel clips left over when it was done. Turns out they work perfectly with the Roadster door panels and the cost is a blazing $7.00 for 10 clips. The part number for 10 clips is 2188 and they can be purchased at Clarks Corvair in Shelburne Ma. Pnone number is 413-625-2588. There is also a company right next door to me called Classic Industries that carries what looks to be the same clips and their price is $9.00 a dozen. The Classic Industries part number is K13173 for 12 clips and they can be reached at 800-854-1280.
From 23yrRebuild-
Yup, Clark's has a number of useful items. For the door panel clips, here is the link to the page. This is a very economical replacement part.
http://www.corvair.com/user-cgi/catalog.cgi?function=goto&catalog=MAIN§ion=MAIN&page=227
Item C2188 is at the very bottom of the page.
Another solution came from a thread on the forum-dridge11 tried these- So, I was in the market for door/panel clips and read through a bunch of suggestions, this was among them. I didn't see this one officially tested and approved, but I used them with fantastic results. It's the door panel clip set from a TR4/TR6, product number GHF1230S.
I got them here: http://www.bpnorthwest.com/.sc/ms/dd/ee/9824/Door%20Panel%20Clip%20Set%20TR4-TR6
After shipping to CA, it worked out to about $20 for 30 clips.
Here is a picture of the factory Datsun clip (right) next to the TR4/TR6 clip (left):
