Thought that this may benefit some of you guys out there. I have a 85 Ramcharger with the chalky and faded door panels that I couldn't find new panels for. Since it's a daily driver I didn't want to spend a ton of money on them either, so I decided to try to restore them myself. Sorry but I didn’t think about taking before pictures since I didn’t think they would come out very well anyway. Suffice to say they were pretty bad at the top of the panels. The arm rests were also torn up.
The first thing I did was to sand all of the chalkiness out of the plastic with some 320 grit paper. I then wiped them down with thinner and sprayed them with a very thin coat of VHT High Temperature Wrinkle Plus paint. Be sure to let this stuff dry for 24 hours before going any further. It continues to wrinkle as it dries. Here is a picture after the first coat. (You can still see some of the scratches in the plastic.) The next day I sprayed another thin coat on the places that were still smooth or scratched and let it dry for another day. After this the texture looked pretty good. I then used SEM color coat (Palomino for my interior) and sprayed the color back onto the door panels (4 coats). Once all of this was finished, I sprayed the panels with 3 coats of Dupli-Color Wheel Matte to protect the panels.

The next problem was the arm rests. Couldn't locate new ones, so I decided to use the same method to create texture. I went over to a friend's wood shop and we found a piece of 1" thick maple. We put the old armrest on the wood and traced the shape out and cut it out with a jigsaw. We then routed ann of the edges and sanded it smooth. Be sure to use some type of hardwood that doesn't have wood grain that will come through. I then primed the new arm rests and sprayed them with the VHT. I put a heavier coat on this since it was perfectly smooth. I still had to do a second coat the next day to cover the edges a little better. I then colored them with the SEM again and applied the clear for protection.
This picture shows what the texture looks like on the top of the panel after I was done.

Next up was the wood grain panels for the doors. The chrome was gone from trim around the panel and the woodgrain was dull and faded. I cleaned it as well as I could with soap and water and a brush. I went to a hobby shop and found a silver leaf hobby pen. I used the pen to outline the chrome and let it dry. Then I applied a second coat. Once it was dry, I sprayed a couple of coats of the Wheel Matte on it and it looked brand new again.

My final problem was the carpet at the bottom of the door panels was faded and had some grease stains that I couldn't get out with soap and water. I sprayed the carpet with the SEM and the carpet looked excellent. It did however, take about four coats.
Here is a picture of the final product. It's not show quality, but it's 100 times better than what I had at the beginning. If I didn't tell you that the armrests were wood, you'd never know.
I think that you could use this same methodology on 'Cuda and Challenger door panels for daily drivers. With a little patience combined with this VHT and SEM paint I think you could really get some nice looking door panels.
Hope someone gets some help from this.
Thanks,
Lee

wow.. really impressive!! nicely done

Very nice!

Holy crap...........Beautiful.
Nice work !!!!

Thanks guys.
I found my Silver Leaf pen that I 'rechromed' the chrome with. Here's a picture of it.

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Not quite perfect....... yet ......but almost there. I have one test card where the difference to my Challenger panels is very hard to see.

Very nice work, Lee, thanks for putting it up.

Hey Grizzly,
what products are you using to get your finishes?

Here's a picture of what I used.......

I used the VHT Wrinkle like you did, a few bedliner products, and a couple of other textured paints. I'd have to dig them up: that was about 5 years ago I did this.

I kept my test cards around for when I get time to get at it again.

Yep, I have a bunch of stuff sitting at the front of the line that has to be done first, unfortunately.