What have you done to your DeLorean today?

[DeLorean03]

Guys - this is just happening because your board is warped and sagging. Probably nothing has come loose, just the carboard underneath the fabric is starting to bend under its own weight. I fixed it by removing the board and epoxying a thin piece of aluminum bar stock (available at Lowe's, etc) to the underside of it. Thin enough that I can bend it slightly to get the board to match the curve of the roof, but strong enough that it will never sag again.



Unless when you remove the board you find what Dennis did, that your clip isn't installed properly

So, when you installed that aluminum bar, is the aluminum sandwiched between the board and the roof, or is it on the bottom of the board closer to the ground ?

I know it's a silly question, but when I copy that method you did, I kind of want to do it right (:

And, maybe it's just me, but as I look at that picture - wouldn't the weight of the aluminum pull the cardboard down even harder? Or does the aluminum bar hook into the roof somehow? What am I missing exactly ??

[eagle-co94]

Based on the image it looks like that bar will be touching the roof, not the headliner material based on the bracket location.
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[MTDMC]

Got my car preped to come out of hibernation and moved it to another spot of the storage building.

[jawn101]

So, when you installed that aluminum bar, is the aluminum sandwiched between the board and the roof, or is it on the bottom of the board closer to the ground ?

I know it's a silly question, but when I copy that method you did, I kind of want to do it right (:

And, maybe it's just me, but as I look at that picture - wouldn't the weight of the aluminum pull the cardboard down even harder? Or does the aluminum bar hook into the roof somehow? What am I missing exactly ??

Hey Jer - yes, it's on the top of the board, between the cardboard and the roof. Plenty of room up there. Then I just wrapped the board with new fabric right over the aluminum bar so it's totally invisible.

The aluminum weighs next to nothing there. And it's not weight that was making the board sag, it's just heat and probably moisture and sun and etc etc etc. You can see that the bar is very close to the main support point of the roof clip, so there's virtually no risk of additional sag as a result. The bar just keeps the board stiff so you can't see it hanging down through the rear window. The relatively thin stock I used allowed for the slight bend required to fit the curve of the roof.

Really, it works!

[DeLorean03]

Hey Jer - yes, it's on the top of the board, between the cardboard and the roof. Plenty of room up there. Then I just wrapped the board with new fabric right over the aluminum bar so it's totally invisible.

The aluminum weighs next to nothing there. And it's not weight that was making the board sag, it's just heat and probably moisture and sun and etc etc etc. You can see that the bar is very close to the main support point of the roof clip, so there's virtually no risk of additional sag as a result. The bar just keeps the board stiff so you can't see it hanging down through the rear window. The relatively thin stock I used allowed for the slight bend required to fit the curve of the roof.

Really, it works!

That is just awesome! Thank you, jawn - I definitely appreciate it. I'll take a "before" shot of my back headliner. It is hideous D: ....

[Farrar]

No pics right now since I forgot to charge my camera before I started work. I will attempt to describe verbally what I did today.

I finally removed the driver-side rear trim panel (#42 on this page) to find the hole behind the speaker. I noticed that the headliner in my car is still attached in the middle where the bracket is. However, it sags from either side. Checking carefully I noticed water stains on the fabric. This seems to indicate that the board itself may have been damaged by water, which is why it no longer stays firm against the ceiling.

I really like the idea of aluminum reinforcement bar, by the way, and intend to do this mod/fix.

The headliner in my car seems to have had its fabric replaced without having been removed from the car: the fabric extends over the lip of the fiberglass body and is adhered underneath the inner door seal. It looks like I will be unable to remove the headliner without damaging the fabric. The overlap is probably how the water stains got there: the fabric sticks out from underneath the innder door seal.

Speaking of door seals, I found splits in the outer door seal and a crack in the inner door seal on the driver side. I removed the seals.

One of the screws holding in the left rear speaker bracket was stuck, so I used a Grab-It to remove it. While I had the tool out, I decided to look for other rusty fasteners inside the car and remove them. The screws holding the sunvisors on were rusty, so I removed those. I needed the Grab-It for one of them. (Safety tip: Working above my head, even with glasses on I managed to get metal shavings in my eyes while removing the sunvisors. I rinsed them immediately with no harm done. Even if you wear glasses like me, safety goggles are a good idea, even when it means more sweating.)

The vinyl on the driver-side trim panel was cracked in several places and so some of it stayed on the car. Some extra time with the heat gun took them off.

There is a foam piece on the driver-side trim panel which looks meant to mate with the speaker; this foam is absent on the passenger-side trim panel.

The black urethane around the rear glass stuck to the rear of the driver-side trim panel, making the panel difficult to remove. The bracket holding the engine cover release lost half of the rivet which comes in from the wheel well, so this bracket is flopping around now that the trim panel is removed. What is left of the rivet will need to be drilled out before the bracket can be fixed into place again.

Part #8 on this page is held on with screw on my car. I understand that on later vehicles rivets were used. The rivets were a good idea: the screws used on my car poke through the fiberglass body and the holes they made were (badly) covered with black urethane. Some of this urethane fell right off when I touched it with my finger. I would like to seal the holes permanently and replace the screws with black plastic rivets; has anyone else done this and did it work?

There are "crisp" edges around the edge of the body-to-infill-panel join which snapped off when I put my finger on them. Perhaps this is a fiberglass repair or patch, indicating that the fit was so poor between the infill panel and the body on this side that the gap was too large to fill with urethane. This is not the case on the passenger side of the car.

When I pulled the outer door seal off of the driver side, I noticed the screws holding the T-panel on spinning in place. I feared the worst, but they were just loose. I now have the urge to check all of the screws on the T-panel and quarter panel, but I will have to remove the old adhesive first. Having tightened some of the T-panel screws, I still noticed it was floppy on the rear. The black plastic finishing piece to which the T-panel clips has broken, leaving that edge of the T-panel poking up with no way to tighten the clip enough. The finishing piece already suffered from this car's lack of uniformity: the screw hole had been widened with a file to fit on the driver side. Presumably a NOS finishing piece would need the same "make it fit" adjustment.

I disconnected the in-line connector where the door harness meets the interior harness to check for corrosion. The terminals looked sound, but some of the female terminals had been pushed back from the end of the connector. I pushed them back into place. This is probably the least of my worries right now. As the car becomes more and more dismantled I find more and more items to replace or repair. It looks like I won't be finished in time for the next DCS.

The rust spots on the headliner where the sunvisors used to attach are even more of an eyesore than the ragged sunvisors were. (I am not refurbishing the sunvisors since they're autographed. They will need to be replaced.) I will likely end up removing the entire headliner and have it re-covered.

All in all, a very disappointing day. I thought I'd make a simple repair, and added ten more items on my to-do list without ever reaching the one goal I had when I walked into the garage.

[jawn101]

No pics right now since I forgot to charge my camera before I started work. I will attempt to describe verbally what I did today.

I finally removed the driver-side rear trim panel (#42 on this page) to find the hole behind the speaker. I noticed that the headliner in my car is still attached in the middle where the bracket is. However, it sags from either side. Checking carefully I noticed water stains on the fabric. This seems to indicate that the board itself may have been damaged by water, which is why it no longer stays firm against the ceiling.

I really like the idea of aluminum reinforcement bar, by the way, and intend to do this mod/fix.

The headliner in my car seems to have had its fabric replaced without having been removed from the car: the fabric extends over the lip of the fiberglass body and is adhered underneath the inner door seal. It looks like I will be unable to remove the headliner without damaging the fabric. The overlap is probably how the water stains got there: the fabric sticks out from underneath the innder door seal.

Speaking of door seals, I found splits in the outer door seal and a crack in the inner door seal on the driver side. I removed the seals.

One of the screws holding in the left rear speaker bracket was stuck, so I used a Grab-It to remove it. While I had the tool out, I decided to look for other rusty fasteners inside the car and remove them. The screws holding the sunvisors on were rusty, so I removed those. I needed the Grab-It for one of them. (Safety tip: Working above my head, even with glasses on I managed to get metal shavings in my eyes while removing the sunvisors. I rinsed them immediately with no harm done. Even if you wear glasses like me, safety goggles are a good idea, even when it means more sweating.)

The vinyl on the driver-side trim panel was cracked in several places and so some of it stayed on the car. Some extra time with the heat gun took them off.

There is a foam piece on the driver-side trim panel which looks meant to mate with the speaker; this foam is absent on the passenger-side trim panel.

The black urethane around the rear glass stuck to the rear of the driver-side trim panel, making the panel difficult to remove. The bracket holding the engine cover release lost half of the rivet which comes in from the wheel well, so this bracket is flopping around now that the trim panel is removed. What is left of the rivet will need to be drilled out before the bracket can be fixed into place again.

Part #8 on this page is held on with screw on my car. I understand that on later vehicles rivets were used. The rivets were a good idea: the screws used on my car poke through the fiberglass body and the holes they made were (badly) covered with black urethane. Some of this urethane fell right off when I touched it with my finger. I would like to seal the holes permanently and replace the screws with black plastic rivets; has anyone else done this and did it work?

There are "crisp" edges around the edge of the body-to-infill-panel join which snapped off when I put my finger on them. Perhaps this is a fiberglass repair or patch, indicating that the fit was so poor between the infill panel and the body on this side that the gap was too large to fill with urethane. This is not the case on the passenger side of the car.

When I pulled the outer door seal off of the driver side, I noticed the screws holding the T-panel on spinning in place. I feared the worst, but they were just loose. I now have the urge to check all of the screws on the T-panel and quarter panel, but I will have to remove the old adhesive first. Having tightened some of the T-panel screws, I still noticed it was floppy on the rear. The black plastic finishing piece to which the T-panel clips has broken, leaving that edge of the T-panel poking up with no way to tighten the clip enough. The finishing piece already suffered from this car's lack of uniformity: the screw hole had been widened with a file to fit on the driver side. Presumably a NOS finishing piece would need the same "make it fit" adjustment.

I disconnected the in-line connector where the door harness meets the interior harness to check for corrosion. The terminals looked sound, but some of the female terminals had been pushed back from the end of the connector. I pushed them back into place. This is probably the least of my worries right now. As the car becomes more and more dismantled I find more and more items to replace or repair. It looks like I won't be finished in time for the next DCS.

The rust spots on the headliner where the sunvisors used to attach are even more of an eyesore than the ragged sunvisors were. (I am not refurbishing the sunvisors since they're autographed. They will need to be replaced.) I will likely end up removing the entire headliner and have it re-covered.

All in all, a very disappointing day. I thought I'd make a simple repair, and added ten more items on my to-do list without ever reaching the one goal I had when I walked into the garage.

Hey Farrar - the headliner material is supposed to wrap around the body with the inner door seal over it. What's more likely is that your door seals were replaced and not banged down far enough or the new ones were a little shorter so they didn't cover all the overlapped material. But you're right, that is likely how the water is getting onto your headliner. Just trim away the extra. But if you remove the headliner to recover/replace it, you're going to want to put it back that same way - wrap the fabric up and over the lip, knock the door seal on good and tight, then trim the excess fabric away. This means that you need to leave some loose fabric (about 2" total, to make sure you have enough to pull tight then trim away) around all the edges of the roof panels where they border the door.

[Farrar]

I removed the sun visors. The fabric is shredding and discolored, the hardware is rusted, and no one knows who Bobby Allison is anymore, so they couldn't care less that my car was once his.

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[Dangermouse]

That's kinda sad in a way.

I assume you'll just keep them stored and get a couple of new ones?

[Farrar]

That's kinda sad in a way.

I assume you'll just keep them stored and get a couple of new ones?

Yep. A friend of mine owns an operates a framing shop. I'm going to talk to him about mounting the visors in a frame for display.