So, here's my headliner: It's in a 64 Wildcat and I'm trying to do this car on the cheap. I've got to get it back on the road and possibly, years from now, overhaul it. Right now though, I've got no intention on replacing all this so I'm looking for an alternative. Has anyone ever replaced a dead bowed headliner with something a little plainer? I know, it's a terrible thing to do but desperate times call for desperate measures.
I made my own headliner from scratch for a '88 S10 Blazer I drove for years....wish I had pics of the process as it turned out pretty nice. I hated that velour look so I pulled the original velour headliner and the thick compressed fiberglass "board" that it was glued to. I was left with the bare metal roof underside. >I used black compressed paper door panel board from an auto upholstery supply place to make my new headliner boardS. Note that I said boards...plural. I split the headlner into sections. The first section the area over the front seats. It ended at the dome light...and there was a roof brace running side to side at the dome light..the perfect thing to attach that edge of this section to. I made two other sections..middle one ran from the domelight roof brace back to another roof brace. Last section was similar. COVERING--I found a dark charcoal grey trunk lining fabric and glued it to one side of the boards...I may have put one layer of darkgrey/black approx 1/4" dense foam on the board first. ATTACHMENT: On the Blazer I had the advantage of having some side trim panels around the windows, etc that I could tuck the edges of the boards into at each side. At each seam I used short sheet metal screws to hold the edges of the board SEAM HIDING: To cover each seam b/n the boards I made padded "bars" tha ran from side to side covering the seams. The one just above the front seat passengers/drivers head was pretty thick by building up layers of the thin foam and then shaping it with a DA sander...think head protection if you got in wreck. The middle seam was a much simpler, lower profile strip. SUPPORT FOR THE MIDDLES OF THE BOARDS: I was concerned about the headliner board sagging in the middle so I just got some of the black plastic barbed pushpins at the auto upholstery place. Then I glued 2" square wood blocks the to underside of the roof with some windshield urethane chaulk I had laying around. I then drilled a hole into each block and a hole thru the corresponding spot in the headliner board and pushed the pins in. They have a large circular head on them that retains the headliner board once you install them. sorry I don't have pics but you can do a lot with some door panel board and some trunk liner type material and other supplies. I drove it FOR YEARS like that and didn't have one sag, one loose screw, etc....it was great looking and way more durable than that gaudy velour that GM used.
Cool man, I'm going to print that out, I appreciate the write up. I'm going to be flat blacking the car for the time being and a custom headline may be in order. I'm thinking: Yeah man!
Now that would be cool!!!:laugh: but---I don't know how it would work with the spray glue/adhesive that would be needed to hold it to the boards. I guess you could wrap it around the back of the board as tight as you could get it and just live with some slight hanging on the fabric. If the fabric is a cloth then the glue might soak right through it...just experiment on a couple pieces. Heck, the glue might impart a cool, odd look to the fabric...sort of a patina. BTW--where do you get the fabric in the pic you just posted??? Locally??
I'll do one better than that. I'm going to cut my socks into strips and line the roof with them. Much smarter.
Don't laugh, as I just came back from Tennessee for work and on a whim visited Graceland because it was so close and Old Elvis had green shag carpet on the ceiling in the jungle room. Pretty tacky but tops at the time.
