Ive never had to take down my headliner. I will in the future because the liner is seperating from the board.

How do you remove this? I also need to get to the passenger seat belt retractor. I don't want to ruin my headliner.

Is it easy to remove?

 

Removing the headliner isn't too hard.

You have to take out:
Sun visors
Dome lamp-pop off the lens, see those little metal things on the studs? Use 2 small screwdriver and/or needle nose pliers to get them off
Plastic trim at the back end of the headliner, in front of hatch glass
Those plastic clips where the seatbelt goes into the headliner
The hooks on the sail panels
You may want to take out the screw at the top of the panel that holds the sail panel so you'l get some space to work

And the fun part, especially for those of us with a hard top, take out the a-pillar mouldings, the ones that run up the side of the window and over the door. To get these out, first take out the pieces at the back of the door. Just one screw and a friction pin(?) at the top. Now removing these a-pillar mouldings is a bitch. I think you hae to smehow slide it forward and down to disengage the part along the window, then back to release thae part over the door.

But here's what I did. Grab and pull. Now chances are you may break the slots in the panel that hold the retaining clips if you do this. I just got the clips out of the car and glued them to the moulding to reinstall it.

Well once you take all that stuff out the headliner will easily come out the hatch.

 

Remove the a-pillar covers. Remove sun visors. Remove upper console if your car has one. Remove the plastic trim piece thingie at the back of the window opening. Remove the plastic roof panel in front of the hatch.

Now for the fun stuff.

There's 3 clips in the front of the headliner that push into the roof right above the windshield. I have yet to get these off with the headliner, but none of my headliners have a problem staying in place without them. I spose you could cement them back into place.

To get the back part out, you'll need to remove those plastic retainers around the seat belt hole in the headliner. If you break them, you've got to take the seat belts apart to put a new one in, so I'd suggest being careful. There's 4 tabs. I had a spare handy to use as a guide, and I slid a pair of flat screwdrivers in to release the tabs, then it came right down. Without having a spare for a guide, I'd say there's a 95% chance you'll break the tabs.

Anyway, once that's done, you should be able to pull the plastic over the sail panels out enough to slide the headliner back out through the hatch. The hardest part is getting the seat belts out of it without cracking the headliner.

If you do crack the headliner, don't sweat it. They're extremely easy to fix. The replacement that I put into my Sport Coupe was broken in 2 or 3 spots. I bought burlap at Jo-Ann Fabric along with the new headliner material. I'd spray the crap out of the burlap with 3M adhesive, then spray the backside of the headliner, and put the soaked burlap strip there. Once it set up, I'd do the same on the frontside. It's real strong, but still semi flexible just like the stock headliner, and with the headliner material in place, it's invisible.