Finished my headliner (long)

[ScottyWM]

Been done for a couple weeks now. A PITA but worth it. Got quotes over the phone first, they said $100 - $150 if I took it out and brought it to them, $250 if I just brought the car to them. I told them "you know this is a wagon with 2 sunroofs".

Not wanting them to break anything, I decided I'd take it all out myself. With Bill R's helpful instructions, I got everthing out no problem. Took it all (15 pieces including pillar covers) to the shops. They take a look and just kinda go "wow", that's a lot of work. They'd never seen a double sunroof either, and had to call everyone over and I'd give a demonstration. Suddenly the price is $250, the $100 is for the big one piece roofs (roof only) most sedans have. Well, I was kind of expecting that, so I decided to do it myself. Material was $12/yard (high, but I got the good stuff going into new cars, not the typical rat fur), 3 cans of adhesive (ran out on the 2nd can) was $30. So I spent less than $80 total.

Started on the easier pieces. Quickly found out it's not easy. You can't place the fabric on the piece - it's much easier to put the piece on the fabric and pull the fabric onto it. By pressing the pieces onto the fabric you can avoid finger marks. For the recesses, I made a bed of towels that I could make conform to the piece, then laid the fabric on it and pressed the piece onto it - this worked very well.

Let all the glue set for a week before reinstalling, just to make sure there were no surprises. Put in new rear speakers while I was in there. Cleaned and greased the sunroof tracks, etc. Still had a couple small spots where you can see what looks like a finger mark where I must have pushed too hard. Hopefully those will disappear over time.

Was surprised how bad shape the old headliner was in when I took it off! The new one made a big difference. There is less noise now too!

Old pieces


New headliner in car (hard to get a good picture!)

[George M]

Congrats Scott...one hell of an effort. Climate seems to have a lot to do with headliners going. Guess they all go at some point tho. The headliner in my 90 735iL in the medium climate where I live in Michigan still looks pretty good but the sunroof switch cover fabric is getting loose :-)...so thinking I may be able to pull the material away from it...not hard...and then just reglue it. What brand of spray on adhesive did you use? Still a bit foggy as to how you got the finger marks out by your technique.
Heck of a good job,
George

[bahnstormer]

where'd u get the material from?
yeah and the adhesive...most are flamable, so i'm looking
for one that's not =]

[Elekta]

very impressive. lets see the rest of the touring.

wife's headliner was really bad (texas car) and she paid $325 all in for her job. As this was out of my ability and patience, and the job being near perfect, I think it was money well spent.

Guy was a good xtian too, so I am bringing him the sea ray at the end of the season for some new interior bumpers pads.

[ScottyWM]

I don't think you'd have any luck at all trying to reglue the old on. Everyone warned me against it. My old stuff just kind of disintegrated, except for the sunroof panels. The switch cover was the easiest piece - plastic, flat and small - You could easily strip off the old and put on new. They even sell the material in our local fabric store, although the selection is limited. I got mine from an auto upholsterer.

What I found was that any touching of the fabric side while the adhesive was setting risked leaving marks. So I pressed the headliner boards and pillar covers onto the fabric. The boards spread out the force more evenly. If I did want to press on the fabric side at all, I used folded up (old) bath towels to dissapate the force.

Used 3M 8088, worked really well. Although it was over 90° when I was doing it, and I didn't have any "working" time.

[ScottyWM]

Got the material from a local auto upholsterer (and picked their brains too). Most rat fur was $8 - $10 per yard. I opted to go with the new type of material they're putting in new cars that isn't fuzzy. My wife's 2003 Accord V6 has what looks like this exact stuff. It was $12/yd. Used 3M 8088 adhesive from AutoZone. Yeah, it says it's flammable, but I wasn't planning on smoking around the material anyways Worked in the hot stuffy garage, trying to prevent the beads of sweat from dripping on my work. The stuff didn't smell strong or anything...

If I had to do it again would I? ..... Hmmm... I think I might just pay for it. But I hate to pay someone to do a job I think I can do with greater care and love than they - whether it's working on my car or cutting my grass, know what I mean?