Hello I have an 84 camaro berlinetta with t roofs. The headliner is all bagged out and in need of being replaced. I see a few different after market headliners out there and was wondering what you guys think about these? Do they fit good? I am not afraid to spend the money, I just want to buy the best for my girl. I see alot of headliners for sale from cars that are being parted out...maybe this would be a better bet??? Please advise.

onthedownlow

 

I've been wanting to buy a replacement too, but I haven't yet, so I can't advise you, but let me know how it works out if you do get a replacement offline!

 

I have heard good things about A1 Auto that is where I'm going to get mine when I get around to it. They are two member of this board that are part experts from them but they are most likely not on this late
Here is what your looking for from them:
Just the headliner
Headliner Set
Headliner Set & T-Top Bag
Also they have free shipping

 

If you take your time and read the instructions that come with the headliner you should be fine.

There are also different instructions for headliners with the over head console,if you call the order in just let the sales rep know this if your car is equipped with one.

 

Everybody sells the same headliner, so any review that you read is going to apply to what you get. Take what you read with a grain of salt though. I've seen some people bitch that it fits so bad I wonder if they got a headliner for the right car.

My personal opinion is that the t-top headliner fits reasonably well if you take your time, and massage it a little bit. It's not going to just slide into place and fit well enough for you to put your car back together. You need to screw with the sun visor mount openings a little bit, and you need to take your time positioning the headliner. If you take your time, and don't expect an OEM perfect fit, then it's not that bad.

If you don't have an overhead console, you may need to utilize some velcro or double-backed adhesive to keep the headliner positioned tight against the roof.

I've got a tech article with plenty of pics that show the overall fitment here:
http://www.iroczone.com/2009/10/inst...irdgen-f-body/

One final comment: After the headliner was installed and the car was used on a couple warm summer days, the fitment seemed to improve, most likely due to the plastic backing softening up and conforming to the roof.

 

Is your fabric sagging or is the entire backing board shot too? Sounds like you are talking about replacing both with a new fabric covered plastic piece. New headliner material is thicker than oem so fitment will be tight like Jim85iroc mentioned.

 

The thickness of the material is insignificant. It's foam, it'll compress. The fitment issues with the aftermarket headliner are related mostly to it being ABS plastic, and because it comes in a box folded like a giant taco, it doesn't fit the best when you try to install it. The main issues are that it's a bear to spread it far enough to get the sun visor mounting holes to line up perfectly, and the fitment around the t-top openings is less than stellar. Neither of these issues has anything to do with the thickness of the material.

Ultimately your best fit will come from a factory headliner, but that creates problems of its own. A hardtop headliner is extremely easy to recover, and I even recommend to my customers that they recover their hardtop headliner instead of buying an aftermarket from me. Anybody can recover a hardtop headliner in an afternoon. With the t-top headliner, it's not so easy. Wrapping the material around those t-top opening corners is difficult, and for 99% of the people that try to do it, they'll wind up with a disaster. Either cuts in the material, or huge nasty wrinkles. There's a few tricks that need to be learned to be able to recover a t-top headliner properly, which is why for most people, the aftermarket replacement is the way to go. It's a lot cheaper than having an upholstery shop recover their original one, and it looks pretty good all things considered. I've got one in my IROC, and although I do intend to go back to my stock one when I get time to recover it, that's way down on my list because overall, I'm happy with how the aftermarket one looks in the car.

 

I think half to problem is that the instructions are kind of long,but they're written so that they tell you where to start with the headliner which is at the sunvisors.

I don't think everyone reads them through and follows them correctly. If you follow the step by step process,you should be fine.

T

 

Yes it is foam and will compress over time. Initially though the foam backed material is a lot thicker than removed fabric. It is a little tough to reinstall headliner around map light and seat belt covers. Another problem is that many stock headliner boards are deteriorated and broken in places. Took me a lot of time to repair mine with fiberglass and resin. I think that is why many people decide to go with abs backing board for either a hardtop or t-top. Plus I didn't save a whole lot of money by recovering mine. Good experience sure, but at least we have some options out there.

 

where are you purchasing the headliner out because my iroc needs a new one also along with a dash.

Thanks
Greg

 

Just a word of advice: Before making a on-line purchase and doing the install or trying to replace the fabic, try getting a estimate from a local Auto reuphostery
Shop. This may be a better route to go instead of DIY (and the screw ups that can happen). Might be better price also, I paid $160 ($300+ on-line quotes) to have mine replaced to a factory stock appearance.