Headliner

[supercarreraJ]

The headliner on our 911SC is looking a bit old and we are looking to replace it.
Does anybody know how difficult this job is? Also, how long it will take? Thanks

[Jerome74911S]

I haven't replaced mine, although I may have to soon, so I have an interest in this. Right around the corner from me there is a Porsche restorer of many year's experience, and he says that replacing the headliner is the fussiest job in the interior.

However, I don't know anything about doing the replacement other than that. I know another restorer about 35 minutes away and he is more optimistic, saying that the replacement is not that hard.

I'll shut up on this, because all I know is hearsay.

[DDD]

I've looked into this, as I have a tear in mine, and everything I've read says that this is a nightmare project. Not for the faint of heart. There is a guy trying to restore his interior posting on pelican right now and the headliner is not going well. That's what I know.

Do a search and you will find this guy's story and many others.

[Kaliv]

I just redid my headline a few months ago. It involves taking out all the windows, which wasn't all that difficult. If you car has a sunroof like mine, that posed a little more hassle as well. As I tried to fit the headliner in, I felt that I was doing such a crappy job that I ended up just taking to a play and paying out a few hundred to have someone else do it. I wasn't at all impressed with the job, which makes me think it does take some experience and love. If you don't do it yourself, you'll probably miss out on the love that needed for the job. I didn't have the guy put the sunroof back in for me, and found out that it didn't fit once I tried installing it. So I had to take the headline back off the sunroof part and install that back myself. Surprisingly, it was fairly easy. Which makes me wonder if I couldn't do the entire job myself. Still not sure...but I'd say if you have someone around that has had experience doing it once...save the money and try it yourself.

[Canada Kev]

By all accounts I have read here, the job is rather fussy and requires a lot of patience and time, though other than that is not horribly difficult. Apparently it helps to have the HL warmed up, like from sitting spread out in the sun for a while. Or maybe I'm thinking of replacement carpet... If you do a search, I'm sure you'll find lots of examples. Good luck.

[mnewport]

I'm doing my interior right now, and the headliner is exactly the part I'm working on as I write this. So far the headliner itself hasn't been too challenging but the sunroof panel has been a royal PITA. Also I managed to crack my windshield while removing it.

I can see already that installing the trim on my quarter windows is going to be a challenge, too.

[Doug Smith]

I just finished mine today. I can attest that it’s a time consuming job that requires a lot of patience. But if you have no fear of removing your door gaskets, felt trim above the doors and all your windows, and can do so without breaking one or damaging the aluminum trim (if yours has it), the headliner should not scare you.

By the way, mine is a coupe, so I didn’t have to deal with a sunroof. But the technique of installing the headliner is the same.

Before you take out your old headliner, take note of the overlap where your old headliner is glued down and the cut method used around the corners of the windows. (Especially the B pillars. This was the most difficult area I ran in to.)

Once your old one is out, clean the area around each window and remove any excess glue or debris where the new one will be glued down.

In addition, I would recommend sanding and painting your bows with a gloss black paint. It will make the headliner listings slide more easily when stretching.

Install the screws for everything you removed that will be covered with the new headliner. It is much easier to feel a screw head through your new headliner than it is to feel a screw hole. The last thing you want to do is cut a hole in your new headliner in the wrong spot.

If the plastic stays on the ends of you bows are worn out, and I’m sure they are, some clear plastic tubing (from the hardware store) cut in the appropriate length will work great as replacements.

It goes without saying that your bows are designed for specific locations so figure out a way to mark them so as not to get them mixed up later.

If you roof insulation is worn, now would be a good time to replace it. I used a ½ inch fabric backed foam for mine. It is called “scrim” and is available from any large fabric store. Use your old one as a template and install it with any good spray adhesive. I used 3M Super 77 and have used this in the past with no problems.

Start by inserting all the bows in the correct listings.

From the front, install the bows and work the headliner into position by pulling it front to rear by the front and rear edges. Make sure you have it centered in the window openings. This is important because, if like the one I bought, there isn’t much material to spare when you get back to the C pillars. If you’re off ¾ inch to one side and begin to glue it down, when you get back to the thin C pilar pieces, you may not have enough material to stretch across the pinch rails and glue properly.

One thing to keep in mind when you’re gluing it in, when you reinstall the windows, the rope or wire that you use to reinstall them will be dragging across headliner on the edge of the pinch rails. If the headliner doesn’t overlap the pinch rail sufficiently or isn’t glued properly, you run the risk of the rope or wire pulling the headliner off the pinch rail and ruining the job. At the least, it will cause a major headache at a time when you were feeling pretty good about your progress.

Once your headliner is centered in the opening and your bows are in the correct position, start at the center of the front window opening, pull the slack out to the front and clip it in place temporarily with small binder clips. (Did I mention that you should procure a couple or three boxes of small paper binder clips? The kind that are approximately ¾ inch wide.)

With the front clipped down and stationary, go to the back of the door windows and make sure you have equal amounts of material on both sides of the car. Put a small clip on each side at that point.

You can go to the rear window opening, pull out the slack, and temporarily clip the back in place. Make sure you centers line up in the rear window as well.

Before you begin to do any serious stretching, peek up under the headliner and make sure that the listings are not bottoming out against the side of the body. On mine it was necessary to relieve the listings on all bows, both sides, about 1 inch, to allow me to pull enough slack to get the tension I wanted, side to side.

At this point, you should start temporarily clipping the sides, all the way to the rear of the door openings, but not past the B pillars. I would recommend that you glue and clip the straight span across the front window opening, then down both sides, all the way to the rear of the door openings, saving the A pillars for last.

If I didn’t mention it before, I used Weldwood Contact Cement or Pliobond. Two Small bottles was plenty to complete on coupe headliner.

Pay close attention when stretching and gluing the A pillar sections. You will need to cut reliefs in the material to make it fit properly. Now’s a good time to recall how the original was done before you removed it. Play around with stretching the material slightly forward or backward to get these areas tensioned evenly. Don’t stretch it too tightly. Remember, the existing trim you pulled back will overlap this. Just make sure that this transition will be smooth when you do that.

Once you’re at this point you should be feeling pretty darn confident about finishing the remainder of the job. And you should be, considering that you’ll just be repeating the same process as you proceed.

Temporarily clip each C pillar headliner piece in place toward the back of the rear window opening with a single clip, just to hold it in place. Taking one side at a time, continue stretching and gluing across the top of the side window opening. Take care to make sure you don’t have any overstretched areas around the B pillar and make sure you don’t over relieve and areas around the B pillar. To me, the 90 degree transition between the roofline and the B pillar was the hardest area to get correct. I was never really happy with the way it turned out, because you cannot stretch headliner material in two different directions at the same time and if you relieve too much in these corners, you can wind up with a very small area in the top corners where the B pillars meet the roofline that will not be covered. Just take your time and keep in mind where the existing trim will cover when you’re complete. Make sure you get that transition covered so it will be as smooth as you got the ones in the front.

Once the side window has set up, continue down the remaining thin section using your newly found headliner experience to ensure they are wrinkle free. Use your package tray cover piece as a guide by temporarily setting it in place to make sure you’ve glued down far enough to finish it off. Don’t skimp on this last bit. Take your time and make sure it tight and wrinkle free all the way down so that it disappears neatly under the package tray cover.

Go around and make sure all areas are glued down properly. Re-glue any areas that aren’t. Use a razor blade knife to trim off the excess headliner material and clean up any excess contact cement with some solvent. I used acetone. It has no affect on base coat/clear coat, but if yours has a different finish, use something appropriate for your finish.

At this point you should be able to step back and look at your handy-work with pride. If you’ve made it this far and are happy with your results (and still have your sanity), be sure to take your time reinstalling your windows and other appurtenances. It would really be a shame to screw something up at this point.

I’m sure I’ve left something out and more sure that I’ve put most of you to sleep, but, for those of you undertaking a headliner replacement, this pretty much gives you a basic idea of what it takes.

[supercarreraJ]

Thanks for the advice everyone There are plenty of specialists in my area that I think can do the job

[79 Euro]

Had mine stained black for $100. Pretty sure they used a rattle can. Looks much better than white as my interior is solid black.