Tutorial - How to redo headliner...
 

I just finished up redoing my headliner and along the way took a few pics and made a brief tutorial on it for those of you who want to do this yourself. It took about half a day to do and cost less than $50 for all of the materials.

You can find the headliner fabric at JoAnne Fabrics for around $10-11/yard and the rest of the material you can get at any local wallmart, auto supply store or marine supply store.

Have fun and good luck.

http://www.caraudioresources.net/bird_headliner.shtml


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Carl
CarAudio Resources


---Edit for spelling mistake---

[This message has been edited by GndPrx (edited June 02, 2001).]

Great instructions, I'll be referring to that page soon https://www.thirdgen.org/messgboard/biggrin.gif

only one problem, it's DUCT tape not DUCK tape https://www.thirdgen.org/messgboard/smile.gif

Very nice,

I just took off my headliner and was looking for an article like this. I found 1 on www.iroc-z.org that was pretty good too, if anybody wants to cross-refernce that one.

Anyways, I follow most of your aricle, except when you say to ix up some polyester resin and hardener. What is this stuff, what do you use it for, and where can I get it?

Thanks, any help would be appreciated, also did the headliner look good afterwards, were you able to recover it so theres no creases or nayhting else casue I think that is the hardest part of the project.

Last question, how much fiberglass cloth did you use, and where didi you find the 3M adhesive (any store like Strauss or Pep-Boys?)

Sorry for all the questions, but I could really use some help with this.

-Max

-86 Trans Am WS6 305 TPI 700R4 Restoration Project

That article is fairly close but I went a step further by fiberglassing the whole front side rather than just repairing from the back side. By doing the whole front side I'm sure it won't crack again any time soon.

As far as the polyester resin, this is the actuall fiberglass resin that hardens up the cloth. You mix the resin with a hardener that comes with it and you have a short time to spread it out before it starts to harden. (sort of like bondo, but liquid that requires the cloth or matt to give it strength)

You can get resin from just about anywhere. Around me I get it from Marine supply stores as they are the cheapest, but you can also get it from Wallmart (who also sells the cloth) or most auto parts stores. Usually it's in the same area as the Bondo and body repair sections.

The headliner turned out really good as far as looks go. You just have to be paitent and not cut too much of the cloth so that it doesn't wrap around the back side. You must be able to wrap at least 1-2 inches in order for it to hold around the edges.

I think you would only need about a yard or so of cloth to piece together enough to cover the whole headliner. If it's a non t-top vechicle, then you would need almost 2 yards.

3m adhesive can be found at just about any pep boys or autozone or whatever.

Hope that answers your questions.

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Carl
CarAudio Resources

Thanks Carl,

That clears up just about everything, tomorow I gotta pick up some stuff at Pep-boys, and I'll get these while I'm at it. Repairing the headliner is the next step of my interior rstoration.

BTW Can I buy the foam backed headliner cloth that Pep-Boys sell or do I ahve to get a particular type of cloth from somewhere else.

Thansk for your help

-Max

Not sure of the quality that Pep-boys carries, but I got mine from JoAnne Fabric for like $10/yard



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Carl
CarAudio Resources

Thas a sweet job Carl https://www.thirdgen.org/messgboard/smile.gif especially if this was your first time.
SSC https://www.thirdgen.org/messgboard/smile.gif

Lucky you, I was going to redo my headliner but recently found out that my t-tops were leaking and it totally destroyed it. Any on how to make a new one?

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88 White Formula 305 TBI With A New CD Stereo and Abolutly Nothing Else Done To It!

Thanks for info Carl, a project for next weekend....

Year One has them for about $200.00 covered. These are plastic vice paper board ones. It takes about 3 weeks to receive them.
http://www.nextgenparts.com/

Aaron

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1985 Camaro Sport Coupe
LG4, 3.08 rear, A4
Bone Stock
1999 Blazer
4x2, 4.3L, 3.42 rears
Decidedly slow

Right, but why pay $200 for a new one when you can just as easily restore yours for less than $50 and a few hours of your time...actually only about an hour of your time, the rest is waiting for the fiberglass to dry.

Just thought I'd help save everyone some $$

Only reason I can see to buy a new one is if yours has completly deteriorated and can't get a mold from it.

Alright, I ripped out the headliner last night. I bought the resin, hardener and cloth from Home Depot and fiberglassed the sucker. A little bit of a pain in the butt but I can't stress enough to do this in a WELL ventilated area. I did it in the garage and the house still stinks. I'm going to get the fabric tonight. So far so good.

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You don't have to wear a tuxedo to sport a bowtie!

hahaha, you will want to do this outside. I did it in my carport which already smells of fiberglass from building all my new interior pieces.

Glad to hear that it's going well so far. The glassing actually isnt' too bad once you get the hang of what your doing. Just remember to dab, not brush and either mix the resin not as hot (takes longer to dry, less MEKP), or mix it in only about 8oz at a time to prevent any lost by it hardening in the mixing container.

Hehehe .. a little to late for that. First I painted it on. I had it all over my hands from trying to keep the pieces down. I got the hang by the end. The last pieces I put down over a light coat of resin and 3M 90. Then I coated over the fabric. Worked much better. I mixed 16oz instead of 8oz and lost about half of it. I lost 3 brushes because they hardened up real quick. It was a comedy show.

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You don't have to wear a tuxedo to sport a bowtie!

Well, I should probably go add a few things to the page...maybe I'll do that tonight if I have time.

Fiberglassing 101...

-Fiberglass in a WELL ventilated area
-Disposable gloves are your best friend
-Cheap resporator is a good thing, good cartridge resporator is an even better thing
-$.69 3" disposable brushes because you will waste about 2-3 on this project while mixing the next batch of resin
-Keep some acetone on hand to clean up any mistakes/drips where they didn't belong
-Solvent resistant mixing/measuring cups can be reused many times before burning through them. And their cheap.
-If it's hot and humid, use less MEPK hardener than the lable states. Usually 8-10 drops per oz is about right. If it's cold out, stick with the recomended 12-14 drops per oz

These are just some overall glassing guidelines.

When I redid my headliner, I fixed the broken parts in a different way. I sprayed the hell out of burlap patches with spray adhesive, then stuck those on both sides of the weakened/broken areas and allowed it to set up. This gave me a strong headliner that was about as rigid/flexible as the original, but maintained it's original shape.

Now if I could just figure out how to stretch the damned material around the concave corners near the t tops https://www.thirdgen.org/messgboard/mad.gif

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The IROC Homepage
<A HREF="http://www.rit.edu/~jli4307/camaro" TARGET=_blank>
View the restoration of an 85 IROC</A>
"I didn't know a bored out Ford could go so slow" -Shenandoah

AAGGHHHH! You too?! I was putting the new headliner fabric on last night. Everything came out perfect except for those four corners. Drove me nuts! I've got one or two ideas I'm going to try tonight.

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You don't have to wear a tuxedo to sport a bowtie!

Those 4 corners are a pain, especially when you realize that they will be seen from above as well when the t's are off.

Paitence is the best method for dealing with this. One thing that you can try, the factory liner had the foam scraped off of the material in these areas making it a little more workable.

I'm actually going to re-cover mine. There was a discolored section of the material that I thought was in an area that would be covered by a trim panel. I was wrong. So I'm going to go get some new material again and recover it one more time. Also that will give me enough to re-do my inserts as well https://www.thirdgen.org/messgboard/smile.gif

L8rs

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Carl
CarAudio Resources