is there anyway to modify a hardtop headliner board to look right with a ttop car?

 

no, they are inexpensive enough just get the right one.

 

I did the T-Top conversion on my 95 Z28 and planned to mod the hard top headliner, but there was no way to make it look right.

Try Hawksthirdgenparts.com They have the ABS headliners. They're about 240 shipped. I thought when I placed my order that it would be a fully plastic headliner with no cloth. Turned out to be a ABS backing board with cloth on it. It's fine with me, looks great, plus you never have to worry about the backing board dry rotting or deteriorating. I plan to get one for my IROC when the time comes. Good luck

 

When my tan one was destroyed (and I threw it away) I just went to the boneyard and got another one that I covered completely in black duck tape. (my interior is black). Not many people notice its duck tape...

 

I was checking into a new one, the hawks is about 30 bucks cheaper than year one. I was hoping to avoid it all together but not having a headliner is really ugly to me. Although previous owner spray painted the top black, still you have the seat belts and all the wiring to deal with showing.

Speaking of Duct Tape. I was thinking that I could cut the hardtop one and and cut smaller strips to make the rounded areas. Duct tape on the back would pretty much bake itself for a permanent bond. Then recover with some fabric.

All the ttop ones around here are all destroyed. Even if they look nice in the car, removal they just fall apart.

 

Same here, but lets be honest, what fun is remove-and-replace without a fabrication challenge?
Before and After

 

Come on man, dont use duct tape. Take the whole peice to your local upholster and tell him to build it up with some foam and recover it with about $4 worth of material. You can probably get the process done for less than $50. (Had mine done, looks great,)

 

I wish I had a local car upholstery place that was that cheap around here....I'm not paying anything $100+ just for a head liner. With that, I can get a new Tach or one subwoofer or gas...

 

hells yeah

 

If the backer fiberglass stuff is still halfway decent just go to WalMart or some craft store and get 2 yards of felt, some spray adhesive, some hot glue sticks and a stiff brush

$30 and itll look new again and wont have that stupid foam to fail in another few years

 

I am actually considering buying some fabric and just covering my exposed duck tape. But I currently have a minor spark plug issue I'm directing my attention to. It is such a PITA to remove the headliner. I just opened my rear hatch and stuck it in through there...

 

lol... now i've seen it all. love the tape!!

yes just get one out of a junk car. check your local classifieds. no reason you can't find one if you are really looking.

check craigslist.org in your area and see who's parting cars. one in good shape should be $50 or less. $20 in material and a few hours good as new.

i'd leave mine bare before wrapping it in tape but that's just me. good luck with it.

 

If you take your time removing it, you won't destroy it. You need to unscrew the rear b-pillar covers, then take the headliner out through the hatch. You shouldn't have to bend the headliner at all.

Here's a tech article that shows you the removal process:
http://www.iroczone.com/technical/headliner/

Once the headliner is out, if you find that you do have some damaged areas that need to be repaired, I've found that soaking a piece of burlap with spray adhesive, then putting that burlap across the broken piece works great, and is thin enough to be unseen once you put the new headliner material over it. I've repaired a couple headliners this way.

But, you also want to keep in mind that recovering a t-top headliner is very difficult because the material doesn't stretch. Getting the material around the inner radiuses of the t-top openings is virtually impossible.

 

I've been looking locally with no luck. I have 1 more yard to visit.

I don't have the board at all. Bare metal roof is all, with the wiring for dome/brake light. It's an eye sore.

If I could find a board I would have it recovered at a shop. There is one here that is pretty cheap on fabric and installation. It's finding a decent board.

By destroying upon removal, I didn't mean I would, I meant that if the ttops leaked and the sun drying out the wet board, they become dry rotted. The slightest movement and they crumble.

 

by the time you get a board and pay an upholstery shop to do it, you'll have spent more than buying an aftermarket one.

 

I have seen on E-BAY... T-Top headliners already upholstered, you pick the color of the material, and they will send it. I think all you have to do is "undo" the old headliner and fasten this one in. Check it out. It is a little expensive, but in my opinion, I think it will be worth it, rather than taking the time to reupholster it yourself.

 

Took me 3 hours start to finish to remove my old, clean, repair, recover both headliner and sail panels

Its not THAT time intensive

 

If you have a t-top headliner and you were able to recover it without making it look like a 5 year old's art project, then I applaud you. T-top headliners are tough to recover.

 

I redid mine with new fabric, wasn't too bad.
I got the 3 yards of fabric at Joanne Farbics for like $16.

Just take your time around the corners and be patient while the spray glue dries.

 

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/atta...m-mvc-026f.jpg

Was pretty easy

I used felt and it stretched to fit, maybe thats where you had a problem

 

Yeah, felt is easy. Anything that stretches is easy. Headliner material has absolutely no stretch, which makes it much more difficult.

 

I recently went to some upholstery shops. One guy quoted me 200 (but the dude's a bastard and went way over his estimate for me last time) and another place quoted me 400. They both refused to cover it in vinyl, which was what I really wanted. So I decided to give it a try myself.

First I used some nice glue to fix the big cracks. Then I went over the part that gets covered with resin. That made it nice and strong, plus was a halfway decent surface to stick to. I went at it with a blow drier and some vinyl. It turned out awesome. I'm 100% happy with it. I'll post up pics later and you guys can tell me what you think. I still need to do the sun visors, I've been looking for some of that cardboard since mine is all torn up.

It was a real pain to do, but I think if I did when it was nice and hot out it would've been a lot easier. BTW, anyone have any ideas on what to do with the sun visors?

 

How about:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...1610&rd=1&rd=1

 

Ill assume I didnt see that duct taped headliner.

 

Its either clean black duck tape, or bare metal/exposed wires (which I had for a couple of months) or destroyed sagging and brittle board... No one has ever noticed its duck tape until I tell them...

 

I'll update you guys on mine. I just put it in today. It went pretty well. It looks really good and goes along with the black panels around it. There was one problem though. I didn't realize that there were parts above the headliner (the backing of it) that you can see. So theres a little bit around the corners where I cut it that I need to mess with still. I might fill it in with something. That wasn't really my biggest concern today because we put a pair of bmw seats in it...that was fun...it would've been so much easier had I thought through all the work that would be involved and bought a pair of 4th gen seats.

 

BMW seats? Sound nice, got any pics? I put Dodge Conquest racing seats in my T/A. Did you use the 3rd gen brackets or beamer or fab your own?

 

Yeah, I've been meaning to take some pictures of the car. I used the bmw brackets so I could keep all of the power functions of them (gotta love the lumbar, lol) I think they look pretty good, of course that could just be my imagination from staring at the damn thing for eight hours today. I'm just glad to have two seats in the car.

Oh and btw, I didn't get to tell you, but I ordered those sun visors. Not quite enough bling bling for me, but I think the tv screen will make up for it. Now if you could find those in chrome, I might even sell you these for cheap

Seriously though, could I get some wax cardboard type stuff and bend it to match the sun visors?

 

I'm sure it was fun trying to fit the beamer brackets to that lovely cat-hump on the passenger side! As far as sun visors, why not pick up an old pair from the junkyard, if you can't re-do those, maybe atleast use them as templates. I'd go to hardware store and look around the wall-plaster section, I'm sure they'd have some sort of carboard/plastic wall material (or maybe roofing?)...