Headliner replacement

[opethmike]

I am reupholstering my sagging head liners over this winter. Took the headliners out of the car today, and I've got the cloth removed. Is there a trick to removing the foam backing that's stuck to the card board liners, or is it just a tedious matter of scrape scrape scrape?

[sdg3205]

Scrape scrape scrape with a spackle paddle. Careful not to take too much cardboard with it.

[opethmike]

Figured as much. Thanks for confirming. I happen to have a plastic putty knife sitting right next to me that will do the job, I think.

[dustybarn]

I did mine 2 winters ago. Lots of scraping and I believe I may have tried to lightly moisten the foam and adhesive with acetone. Not sure it really did any good. The foam had well and truly disintegrated and was only really present in a few places.

[fnzen]

You really dont have to scrape too much if you apply fiberglass resin with a paint bristle brush

imo you should do this anyway as it firms up the "pressed" material and makes them really nice to apply the adhesive and headliner onto

[David T]

You really dont have to scrape too much if you apply fiberglass resin with a paint bristle brush

imo you should do this anyway as it firms up the "pressed" material and makes them really nice to apply the adhesive and headliner onto

All of the work ecessary to remove all of the old stuff is the main reason the vendors use new backers made from fiberglass. It is possible to reuse the old cardboard ones but it does take all that work.

[sdg3205]

All of the work ecessary to remove all of the old stuff is the main reason the vendors use new backers made from fiberglass. It is possible to reuse the old cardboard ones but it does take all that work.

It is not much work. It's easy, you don't have to lift up the car, climb under the car or wear a chemical mask. It's easy and goes a long way to improve the appearance of the interior. I can understand why DMCH would want to produce something new, but for a DIY it's a no brainer.

[opethmike]

It is not much work. It's easy, you don't have to lift up the car, climb under the car or wear a chemical mask. It's easy and goes a long way to improve the appearance of the interior. I can understand why DMCH would want to produce something new, but for a DIY it's a no brainer.

Especially considering how expensive the new fiberglass units are! I was floored when I saw the $550. Considering how cheap headliner reupholstery material is, I'm willing to spend a few hours scraping to save half a freaking grand.

[sdg3205]

Especially considering how expensive the new fiberglass units are! I was floored when I saw the $550. Considering how cheap headliner reupholstery material is, I'm willing to spend a few hours scraping to save half a freaking grand.

A couple years ago when we did the headliners, we bought a roll of the headliner fabric off eBay for $50 and there was enough to do three cars. The colour was so close you could barely tell a difference.

[dn010]

I did mine a few months ago. I guess I'm lucky that someone at DMCH didn't use a lot of adhesive to hold the foam on the replacements I purchased back in '02. The headliner didn't sag but it did come right off the board and I only had to scrape a few areas. I decided to re-covered mine since they were nasty looking with water stains from leaking seals.

It's not a bad task, the hardest part is doing the door headliner with the dip in the middle so you don't get any wrinkles or creases. Also, I decided to trim areas of the door boards where they seemed to overlap the stainless and catch the door seals - good time to do it if you have that problem too.