Headliners

[Skyjacker88]

I am contemplating removing my sagging headliner.

What kind of mess is kept up under there? Has anyone removed it and went without?

[okidoc]

I recently redid mine. Look around for an upholstery store and buy the proper fabric, it should come with padding attached. I had a mexican blanket headliner at one point it looked cool, but I decided it was too much.

THe old stuff is really messy but can be controllled w/ a shop vac and a paint scraper. It's very myushy and sticky.

The newliner goes on veryeasily and looks good. I am very glad I too the time to do it instead of pulling it out.

Get some sound pad too. Huge difference, especially in the roof and over the tranny hump.

[Skyjacker88]

I was hoping, for a while at least to be able to rip the old one out and go without....

I guess just sanding and a coat of paint wont suffice?

[KBWoodwgn]

okidoc, what did you use for sound pad and if you don't mind me asking how much did you shell out? I desperatley want to hush up the inside of my wag but not for the $$$$ of some of the products out there.

[okidoc]

Too be honest, it would be more work. The cloth is really easy to work with.

Of course this is assuming you're cardboard is all in good shape. You can also get chip board it's used for making door and vanity panels. It's basically cardboard and is very cheap. You can use this to straighten any warps in the original.

Good luck

[okidoc]

I used the mylar backed sound pad. I did all the doors the roof and the tanny hump area in front of both seats to the firewall. Prolly about 150 w/ five cans of glue. Not a cheap project but the interior is quiter and cooler. I was really surprised by the change in temp.

[garoo_one]

well i don't know if this will help but what i did was pull mine out completely flip it over and paint it with a sued color paint and reinstalled it fits right back in place just upside down and no sagging material to worry about at all all light holes are where they belong worked perfect

[KBWoodwgn]

where would one get mylar backed sound pad? I mean to do our roof, floor and doors with Dynamat...that's a fortune...$150 is getting off easy (sort of) I also like that flip over the boards idea... flip the boards to take out the sag then glue on the replacement fabric...mmmm I'm getting a plan here..gotta track down the affordable sound pad though.

[okidoc]

Upholstery shops. Also try online I know there are a couple of supply stores that do business on line. JC whitney has what looks like the same stuff but it is more expensive than buying it in person.
http://www.atrim.com/
I looked on this site but didn't see any. They might have a differnt name for it though.

[reddog]

I just pulled the sagging fabric off and scraped the lose foam padding off with a scaper and vac. It was a little messy but not too bad/ I left the baord in place for now until I get that far down the list to replace the fabric. The tan color of the foam matches the interior pretty well :D .

Kerry

[Chero77]

I did mine a few months ago. I got headliner fabric and spray-on adhesive from Pepboys. Pepboys has about a dozen different fabric colors. Including the tan, black, marroon, blue and brown, which seem to be the typical FSJ interior colors. Basically, you just tear off the old fabric, scrape off the residue (a minor hassle) and then spray on the adhesive and put on the new fabric.

I would reccomend spraying the adhesive just on the cardboard on then rolling on the fabric. I did this on the rear headliner and it worked fine. On the front, which I did first, I sprayed adhesive on both the cardboard and the cloth. Not a good idea, as the cloth immediately stuck to the carboard and it was hard to get all the wrinkles out.

Also, my cardboard was sagging. I fixed this by stiffening it with some thin strips of stiff fiberboard which glued on.

[Jeeptruck]

Also did my in my Waggie. I got fabric material from a fabric store $7.00, 3M glue Advance Auto $11.00. Took about 2 hours start to finish. I used a Scotch-Brite pad on my angle grinder to remove all foam and stuff. Super easy super cheap. I ride around now and laugh about how stupid people are for not fixing sagging headliners.

[PlumCrazyChris]

I took mine out because the cardboard was sagging. So I got a spray bottle with water, and wet it down, then laid some plywood on it and added some weight on the wood. When it was dry, all the creases and bends were gone. I rolled on some latex paint and put it back up. It looks fine, but I've recently gotten a newer one with fabric on it. Its in great shape, but I'll need to change the color.....black spray paint or new fabric....I guess I'll try the paint first.

Make sure you caulk up any leaks before you re-install or your work will be ruined after the first storm.

[MrWagoneer]

thats exactly why i had to pull mine off.
the factory roof rack (12 screws and 12 nut/bolts) were mostly leaking.

this soaked my sound deadener directly underneath my roof and also soaked my headlining cardboard.
which caused the foam to deteriorate and the vinyl pulled away from the cardboard.

i took the whole thing out.
approximately 10 cups of dislodged surface rust fell in my eyes...ok that was an exageration....
approximately 10 cups (i kid you not) of dislodged surface rust fell on the dash, floorpan, over my seats and in the wagon area.

doh, i thought it was a little late for a painters cover cloth, using a coarse sander to sand the remaining rust off and then off to the car wash to use their vacuum cleaner.

before sanding i had to remove the sound deadener which was surprisingly thick and needed cutting out as it was installed between the roof and the roof support U beams (i didnt wish to pull them out even tho i had the star driver necessary to undo the screws)

trashed the roof rack and them silly metal strips that went clang as they vibrated over every bump.

the roof rack left 12 1/2 inch holes in my roof (of all places :]), and the meatl strips left approx 12 screw holes as well.

i found some flat plastic plugs sold in assortment of sizes at pepboys that were applicable for the 1/2 inch holes. applied silicon to each plug them pushed them in for the flange to catch from the interior side for a nice almost complately flush finish on the outside. cleaned off excess silicon.
then siliconed them also from the interior.

applied silicon from the outside to the remaining screw holes left from the metal roof strips.
once they dried, i siliconed them from the inside as well.

drove for a week during which it rained and confirmed that no leaks were in the roof.

while it was raining (:]) i was at the local salvage wreckers here in la.
i spied an '83 wagoneer that had the engine bay completely burnt out (poured too much gas in the carb trying a cold start maybe =)).
the heat was enough for the interior dash to have started melting part way.
other than that, it seemed unspoiled, unwrecked and was all mine :]
boy i think i spent 4 or 5 hours on it, picking off tid bits here and there.
the important things, i took the roof headliner out, was in great condition. interestingly the 83 did not have any sound deadeding material above the headliner as my 75 did. also the cardboard was wayyy thinner (they dont make em like they used too). the two pieces were the same shape and overal length just cut at a different point.

then i took off all the weatherstripping for each door, only the drivers side was a little torn at the bottom, other than they were in great shape...nice fat round soft rubbery and was going to fill the gaps i could see thru my doors to the outside and stop the draft and water penetration from air gaps.

$37 later i was a happy camper :]

i ripped the foam morone colour material off the cardboard, scraped the old foam off with a window blade scraper, brought it back to the bare cardboard and clean. i improvised a little since the 83 had cutouts for the roof console which mine does not, and created the appicable holes necessary for my interior lights.

i just came back from the car upholstery supply shop today.
$25 got me 9 feet x 54" green vinyl with the origonal looking holes, without that foam backing. personally, i dread the foam and cloth material.

home depot supplied me a tin of contact cement for $7 and am ready to roll the vinyl on tommorrow.

im still curious wheather to install any sound deadener above the headlining as it had origonally.

the 83 never had it.

[Evan Atherton]

I took mine to an upholstry shop and they did an excellent job.

[Evan Atherton]

Have you solved your headliner dilemma?

[mccullough_89_GW]

go to autoheadliner.com....the kit is like 70 shipped includes cloth/adheasive instructions takes about 3 hrs to do...gravy install...most of the work is scraping of the old foam...the color was a perfect match to mine (maroon)....

pretty painless other than the scraping...

[greasyjeep]

http://www.bluerhino.ws/page77.html

I think there are a couple of shots in this link that show what it would look like.