I'm recovering my headliner and I was wondering if I can just put the new fabric over the existing fabric. It has the factory scarlett red headliner and it's not falling down or anything yet. I want to put black suede over it. Can you do this or will it just cause problems down the road?
I'm recovering my headliner and I was wondering if I can just put the new fabric over the existing fabric. It has the factory scarlett red headliner and it's not falling down or anything yet. I want to put black suede over it. Can you do this or will it just cause problems down the road?
When the rubber foam under the original headliner starts to deteriorate, you will understand why. The old fabric will be rubbing your head and drooping in places. The best way is to scrape off all the old upholstery and glue the new fabric to clean fiberboard backing.
What is clear fiberboard backing? I'd like to avoid taking this to the upholstery shop and do this myself so I'm looking for as much info as possible. Is it tough to get the old fabric and foam off the board since it's not coming off yet?
heeeeeeeey i did mine about a year ago wen i started restoring my ar.. its really easy...pull out the carboard and all..definatly rip all the old stuff off it prolly wont all coem off.. i jsut ook some 80 grit sandpaper and lighltly sandid everything off to make it smooth...it really wasnt to hard..
make sure you no the shape of the board wen its in the car.. ihad some problems there.. kinda layed it out to flat and coverd it then realized wen i put it in it was more bent around the edges .( front corners) so if its on your floor kinda flat wen u are doing it and put it in and it takes shape it make cause sorta crease....
good luck
What is clear fiberboard backing? I'd like to avoid taking this to the upholstery shop and do this myself so I'm looking for as much info as possible. Is it tough to get the old fabric and foam off the board since it's not coming off yet?
That's a typo on my part -I should have said clean fiberboard backing. All it means is that the original fiberboard needs to be as clean as possible. That makes sure that the new upholstery sticks good and doesn't come loose.
It's much better to recover your headliner if you remove the old material and foam underneath. To do this, pull the old material off, revealing the foam padding. This is the stuff that deteriorates and causes sagging of the headliner. To remove ALL of the foam, soak a rag with lacquer thinner and wipe until it's gone. Do not leave this soaked rag on the cardboard or damage may result. Once done and allowed to dry, the cardboard will be fresh, clean and ready for your next step. During this process, do not kneel of press onto the cardboard with any type of weight. This will indent the cardboard and all of these indents will be visible after you're done!
Apply adhesive to the cardboard (aerosol spray cans of headliner adhesive can be purchased at any good auto parts store). Use it liberally. Next, lay your new material onto the cardboard (be careful to avoid creases as much as possible) and use a rolling pin to help you smooth out the air pockets and creases. Once done, use a sharp utility blade/razor blade to trim it to the cardboard's dimensions. Good luck!
That's up to you. I didn't use any padding and mine looks great. Once it's been installed, you can't even notice if you have the padding or not. As far as the padding's thickness, it's less than 3/8" thick and wouldn't do much good for protection in the event of a rollover.
I don't really care about padding for protection and whatnot... I just didn't know if it would look different without the padding... if it doesn't, I'm just going to buy black suede and glue that right on
Cool. I didn't use padding and you couldn't tell on mine if you looked at it. As for the headliner adhesive, it wouldn't hold mine up. It didn't matter how much I used. After it falling down repeatedly, I switched over to Contact Cement. That has held up great and did a better job of holding my vinyl headliner up. Just another option to consider.