Update- Major Project: Headliner
After getting much of the car disassembled last week on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, I took the seat bottom skins to the Shoe Repair/Leather Sewing store. I got them back on Thursday for $15 plus tax, so $16.79 total. Great.
On Wednesday I also cleaned off the headliner shell. First I peeled off the old headliner material, and then I used a deck-cleaning brush to get all of the old adhesive off of there. It was a yucky mess. I’d scrub, then vacuum, then scrub, then vacuum.
ON Thursday afternoon I after picking up the seat covers, I came home and decided to glue the headliner material on myself, without any help from Ani. The spray adhesive didn’t come out as cleanly as I would have liked, it was more of a stream rather than an evenly-dispersed spray. (When Ani came home she said my results would have been better if I had somehow cleaned the spray head to better disperse the glue). It was a bit of a mess, and I got some wrinkles around some of the more contoured edges, but overall it came out pretty good. About what I would have expected with me doing it… I ended up using my office stapler to staple the material around the edges on the back side, the fiber shell was thick enough that the staples didn’t come through.
After doing that, I decided to do the same for the C-pillar trim, as I wanted to reinstall the headliner but the C-pillar trim is what holds the headliner up in the back. Ani arrived home while I was gluing the second one and raised her eyebrows a bit at my nonconventional taping of the material on the back side (as well as the glue pattern) but it came out OK. She helped me get it installed that night, enough that it would stay in place.
Luisa helped me put the rest of the fittings (visors, handles, seatbelts) in on Saturday morning, then we went to Cle Elum. On Sunday afternoon I trimmed out the sunroof opening, and on Sunday evening I got the skin back on the passenger seat. The driver seat is going to be a bit trickier since the upholstery wire tabs have ripped off of the bottom of the seat.
The last big sticking point will be upholstering the sunroof panel. The upholstery is held on at the front and rear each by one long plastic clip which is sewn across the length of the sun roof. The front clip is broken, and both of them are very brittle so I’m afraid they won’t stand up to the sewing machine. I may have to reassemble it without upholstery for a while until I can source the clips.
