If you have a car that is over five years old or older,
you may be having trouble with that nice soft fabric over
your head. If you are like me and many others,
your headliner is falling down and now looks like crap.
Not only does this look crappy, but you may get rotten foam
blowing around in your eyes on a hot sunny day. Worse yet,
your headliner may be halfway ripped out and flapping
crazily in the wind. Like many, I experienced a that problem in
my trusty old car. I hated that headliner. I tried to fix it
and failed. I tried again and failed. The third time
I realized the error of my ways and did not fail.
For the second consecutive year, my headliner is stuck back up
there where it is supposed to be. I didn't even use
thumb tacks, how degrading.
This process is not that hard to do, nevertheless, many
of my peers had awful luck trying to fix their cars' interiors.
Here is how to do it.
Many people make the mistake of taking their old headliner
down, spraying the cieling with spray adhesive, and sticking the
headliner back up. This lasts for about 10 minutes. Don't do it.
Spray adhesive is crap. I have never found anything
that this stuff is good for. For a headliner you would have
better luck attaching it with nasal excretions. Forget the whole
idea of using spray adhesive. I even had a body shop recommend
this stuff to me. Don't do it.
Take down your old headliner, throw it away.
This may sound wrong, but I truly think this is the correct
way to do this. I advise that you go the your local car dealer
and ask for headliner fabric. The difference between the new stuff
and the old stuff is that new headliner fabric has a foam padding
stuff integrated onto the back of it. This foam doesn't seem
to be merely glued to the fabric, it was manufactured there.
(Like the cream in a Twinky) It is
very difficult to get an adhesive to stick to just the headliner
fabric. This foam is to your benefit. Under most circumstances
I would not advise anyone to go to the dealer, but I don't know
where else you can get this stuff. Dealers tend to rip you off,
(for example, they wanted $50 for a new shift knob, shmucks!)
but this stuff is cheap anyway so the rip off isn't so bad. I was
charged $20 for my fabric. It was the same color as the factory
stuff and I had a few feet left over.
Take the cardboard-like ceiling piece out of your car.
This is easiest to do in a hatchback car, but should be
possible in any car. For the method I used, it is almost
necessary that you can set the ceiling on a table. Once you
get this out it is best to clean it off as well as you can.
Try a wire brush or abrasive pad. You want your glue to stick well.
Use fabric glue.
Fabric glue is many times better for this application than
spray adhesive. Fabric glue dries tough and flexible. I did an
experiment comparing the two adhesives. I glued socks together with
each type. With spray adhesive they peeled apart like post-it note
pads, with fabric glue I could not even get the two apart. I
did not pull hard enough, but I am almost sure the fabric would have
torn before the glue let go. Headliner fabric draws up and shrinks
when it gets hot. Spray adhesive lets go at that point, but fabric
glue holds it in place regardless. (It may seem backwards that heat
makes it smaller, if you don't believe me, look at it in the summer
as compared to the winter, it hangs down less on a scorching day.)
The glue I used is called Sobo. Its consistency when wet is
very similar to the traditional Elmer's school glue. When dry
the glue is flexible and strong. It is perfect for fabric. The
cost is about $2 per bottle, it can be found in the sewing section
of Wal-Mart.
(DON'T use school glue, it is brittle!) I used two bottles of this
stuff but would recommend at least three. Squeeze it out all over
the ceiling piece, then lay your fabric over it. This glue is not
tacky like spray adhesive, so you need to be sure to have weights to
lay all over your fabric to be sure the foam is in contact with the
glue when it dries. Get a lot of weights like cans of soup,
metal pieces, whatever. Let this set for a few hours.
Cut out the holes for the dome light, visors, and hanger holders.
This is a lot easier to do from the back side of the ceiling, so I
advise you use a sharp blade to cut out the pieces for the screws
or objects. It is good to cut extra and curl the excess around the
cardboard edges and stick it to the back.
When you get all this stuff done, put it back in your car.
Have fun trying to find all the screw holes. It was worth the
time and the money for me. My job looked like a factory one.
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