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Old 08-19-2012, 12:09 AM
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As promised....

A few things to get out of the way Before we dig into this bit.
1) As it was mentioned previously, If you plan on recovering the headliner yourself, GET MATERIAL THAT HAS A FAIR AMOUNT OF STRETCH.
2) To keep the "luxury" feel, get a material that is laminated to at least 1/8" of foam. Otherwise you headliner will literally be a piece of fiberglass wrapped in material (and feel like it to).

Now for the fun bit....things you need:
Razor blade(s)
3 yards of covering material, 4 if you plan on doing the sunroof cover
Material adhesive (3m is bout the standard issue, best thing to do for products available in your are is head to a shop supply house and talk to the guys there, aka NAPA/CMAX)
Some sort of rotary disc grinder with a scotchbrite pad

The Game Plan:
  • Rip the old material off the headliner
  • Clean the headliner board down to the fiberglass
  • Glue new material down
  • Cut holes for Handles, hooks, Visors, etc.
Getting the old material off is easy as pie, just lift a corner and go to town. If you're lucky, the old foam underneath will come off with it. (Sadly I wasn't)
Starting the removal process...


Next comes the tedious task of cleaning all the old foam off. Personally I don't know how people say to just scrape it off, mine was in no way ready to give up adhesion to the headliner backing. Using a mini air grinder and scotchbrite pads, i was able to easily remove the remaining foam and clean the fiberglass. Make sure you get into all the valleys and corners. The more OCD you are at this stage the less headaches you'll have later.

Once its done, should look something like this......


At this stage I got lazy and decided to take my headliner to a local guy who does interior work for alot of the street rods and custom cars around here. I watched as he recovered the headliner.....things to note if you do it yourself. The level of difficulty is highly dependent on the amount of stretch your material has. MORE STRETCH = LESS DIFFICULT!!
  • Lay Out the material over top first, to get a sense of what it will be like for working the corners and curves BEFORE you spray the glue.
  • Start in the center and work towards the sides. You can work a section at a time, but be warned, this way you are more likely to get glue where you don't want it (on the good side of the material)
  • MORE IS NOT BETTER. Using too much adhesive will cause it to bleed through the material, ruining this whole exercise. My recommendation if you're using aerosol cans: cut a small piece of fabric and spray some glue on the foam so A) You have an idea of how it comes out of the can, and B) you establish a threshold for amount of adhesive it can withstand before it starts to bleed through.
  • When you get to the sunroof, do it last. Cut out the center leaving about 2" from the edge. Then cut the corners at the beginning and end of the curve (essentially leaving you with 4 straight pcs. along the sides and curved pcs. Glue the straight pieces first, then do the corners. You'll have to make relief cuts in the corners so you don't get pulls or wrinkles (how many depends on the material).
  • When you get to the edge of the headliner, you only need to leave enough to fold over about an inch.
This is what the material I was using looks like:


Once you work the fabric down, and its dry you need to cut the holes for the sun visors, lights, hooks, handles and consoles. DONT FORGET TO PUNCH THE HOLES FOR SUN VISOR CATCHES. (I discovered that one the hard way). To make things simple, the cuts are as follows:
Vanity Lights & Grab Handles: Just cut an X from the back making sure to go just up to the corner.
Sun Visor Mounts & Accessory Hooks: Cut a hole in the center leaving ~1/8" around the edges.
Consoles: Cut it flush with the edge.

Like so:


Ready to go back in:



Once you have all the holes trimmed nicely its time to put the darn thing back in, and enjoy a cold one!
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Last edited by X5SND; 08-19-2012 at 12:25 AM.
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