The Sunbeam arrived with newly covered seats, fresh carpet, and a new dash pad (the horizontal piece above the instrument
panel and next to the windshield). Other than that, the interior appeared original and in need of attention. One can buy new, reproduced interior parts, but I decided to refurbish the original ones.
I started with the door panels. The original ones were beyond repair because they (i) were water damaged and (ii) had large holes cut in them for radio speakers. My first step was to trace the shape onto hardboard and then saw out the shape.
After a few test fits and some nipping and tucking, the backing board fit into the door. On the left, the panel is held in place with tape and on the right with metal clips around the perimeter.
I was unable to reuse the original Sunbeam clips because the particle board I used was thicker than the backing material from 1967. I understand that the correct backing board is available on Ebay, but shipping was prohibitive. I was able to find door clips used in Fords and ordered a box. Here is a clip in the panel. The protruding loop slides into the corresponding hole in the inner door and holds the panel tight.
The next step was to cover the panels. I fo
und some nice black vinyl cloth at my new favorite store, Joann’s. The cloth is close in color and texture to the seats and, as has proved very helpful, stretchy. I cut to the approximate size, plus an inch or so around the edges and used contact cement to bond the cloth to the board. The product is surprisingly tough and caused the razor blades I used to cut it to dull quickly.
My decision to use Ford clips and board from Home Depot caused two problems. First, the clips protrude into the door frame far enough to rub on the window mechanism. I was able to address this by 
trimming the clips. Second, the outline of the clips was visible once the vinyl cloth was glued to the hardboard. You can see the paperclip shaped protrusion clearly at the top of the picture, to the left of center. Oops. Time to try again.
Sunbeam 