Headliner Project: Not for Purists (or perfectionists)
03-20-2006, 09:56 PM
#1
Burning Brakes
Thread Starter
Headliner Project: Not for Purists (or perfectionists)
After cutting out the sunroof box and welding in the sunroof panel, the inside of my roof looked like this:
I painted the roof it a bit when I painted the half-cage, but with the sides exposed, it was pretty raw. For a pure track-rat, that would be okay -- but I'm driving this one to the track and wanted something to cover it up so a casual observer might not notice.
What to do? Factory headliner is like $750, and probably wouldn't fit under the main hoop of the half-cage if I were insane enough to spend that much. So armed with a big piece of vinyl headliner material and a can of 3M Super-Strength adhesive, I set out to create a headliner. Warning: Purists or Perfectionists should not read further. Serious Hack-o-Matic at play...
The plan was to use the glue in three parallel stripes, kinda like the support rods, then glue the rest edges of the roof, and tuck the edges of the vinyl under the window seals. I started by gluing to the front of the roof, then used the sun visors and their hardware to hold the vinyl in place as I worked towards the rear of the car.
The brown stripe is masking paper to keep the glue off the window. The 3M glue is fantastic. You coat both surfaces, wait 5 minutes to one hour, then press together. You can peel back and reposition, etc. To fasten the vinyl around the door edges, I removed the seals (which were replaced with new) as recommended here, used binder clips to hold in place. These were hardly needed as the glue had great holding ability. After getting everything more or less glued into place, I trimmed the edges and tucked under the window seals:
So how did it turn out? Just Okay bordering on Awful. The four corners have big folds in the vinyl that are really ugly. Fortunately they are either under the sun visors or pretty well hidden by the cage when you sit in the car. There are some lumps, bumps, sags and bias in the roof that does not look so great. I have no idea how well or how long the center "glue supports" will hold the vinyl in place. But for $16.00 in Vinyl and $15.00 in glue, to the casual observer or from in the cockpit with a helmet on your head, it should do just fine. YMMV.
Now on to the RS Carpet Kit...
I painted the roof it a bit when I painted the half-cage, but with the sides exposed, it was pretty raw. For a pure track-rat, that would be okay -- but I'm driving this one to the track and wanted something to cover it up so a casual observer might not notice.
What to do? Factory headliner is like $750, and probably wouldn't fit under the main hoop of the half-cage if I were insane enough to spend that much. So armed with a big piece of vinyl headliner material and a can of 3M Super-Strength adhesive, I set out to create a headliner. Warning: Purists or Perfectionists should not read further. Serious Hack-o-Matic at play...
The plan was to use the glue in three parallel stripes, kinda like the support rods, then glue the rest edges of the roof, and tuck the edges of the vinyl under the window seals. I started by gluing to the front of the roof, then used the sun visors and their hardware to hold the vinyl in place as I worked towards the rear of the car.
The brown stripe is masking paper to keep the glue off the window. The 3M glue is fantastic. You coat both surfaces, wait 5 minutes to one hour, then press together. You can peel back and reposition, etc. To fasten the vinyl around the door edges, I removed the seals (which were replaced with new) as recommended here, used binder clips to hold in place. These were hardly needed as the glue had great holding ability. After getting everything more or less glued into place, I trimmed the edges and tucked under the window seals:
So how did it turn out? Just Okay bordering on Awful. The four corners have big folds in the vinyl that are really ugly. Fortunately they are either under the sun visors or pretty well hidden by the cage when you sit in the car. There are some lumps, bumps, sags and bias in the roof that does not look so great. I have no idea how well or how long the center "glue supports" will hold the vinyl in place. But for $16.00 in Vinyl and $15.00 in glue, to the casual observer or from in the cockpit with a helmet on your head, it should do just fine. YMMV.
Now on to the RS Carpet Kit...
03-20-2006, 11:01 PM
#2
Addict
Rennlist Member
Rennlist Member
What's not to like? Get a cage with a halo in there you won't see half the issues and it looks better than some first-time efforts at refitting a stock headliner :-) Good work.
