So spent the holiday period tinkering on my front sunblind motor replacement, all is working great as it should be, replaced trim fixing pins etc but as with the Head Liners in Jags i accidently breathed on the liner suede while dropping the hood lining and pillars and the very expected happened, repaired it with CRC brand spray glue but am not happy, does not meet my standard for my car.and some small spots bled through the fabric creating a wet spot look because the old foam does not really like you to try and re stick the exising liner back into place, so excessive glue ends up being applied.

So now one job creates another, kind of feel like i should have just left it alone, so now we are heading down the rabbit hole i did not want to enter in the first place. Been over the forums researching our head liners and the www in the AKA "suede"type and have come across a very confusing issue trying to source replacement material, that being the sunroof recesses and finding a material that i think needs an amount of stretch to be able to fill the countors of the recess corners as i do not really see a non stretch material being able to be moulded in the countours successfully, its not a job you want to mess up.

So trying to find suitable replacement material, there is some pretty cheap stuff available on the net that is foam backed and has stretch, the business did a VERY SHORT tubevid of an x351 they replaced a liner in, .material is available in a kit foam backed: https://headlinermagic.net/products/...39537704665166
stupidly though they advertise the sunblind replacemnt material as foam backed which it simply is not as per factory and well........ that will just not work lol, so not so inspired by that outlet and for more than one reason.
I cannot speak to the quality of the above material, but it is very economical esp versus genuine Alcantra which has far as my research tells me has ZERO stretch.

One of our members @tberg has supplied many members with replacement liners in a brand called Passion Suede, but i am not an upholsterer and have no idea as toward colour matches for the X351, not sure if tberg is still around or not. If you are mate can you drop in and shed some advice on here for us regarding if Passion Suede has suitable closely matching colours and if it can be moulded/stretched around the contours of the sunroof recesses sucessfully without separating the new material and glue bond.
I would love to go Jet black suede but that means redoing the sunblinds and sunvisors, without it it would just look silly and a patchwork quilt with my vehicles existing interior colours i feel.

I really do not want to replace the sunblind material to get a 100% match and have the sunvisors redone as well, i just see a maze of rabbit holes i am simply not prepared for, it is already bad enough just looking at the prospect of even getting the hoodliner out to re- cover in the first place and am not sure if the front windscreen has to be removed as the hood liner is just silly flimsy pressed cardboard, i do not imagine it can be taken out through a door due to the sheer size of it.

Just wow quality for a $300,000k plus car here in Australia, then to do the C pillar properly the parcel shelf and rear seat has to be removed Like i said rabbitt holes and all this due to replacing a stupid sunblind motor.

@Cambo did his X150, but the colour names are different and i have literally no idea how many colour options were available to the X351, my build sheet states Ivory, which looks stupidly simmilar to Cambo's Canvas colour.

Did they change the name because Canvas sounds a bit hmmm unrefined, ohh so we will rename it Ivory dont you know, it matches well with my Tweed sports jacket, golf pants, shoes and my Sunday High tea

But HEY!!!!!!!! on the positive side my front sunblind works

 

Contemplating the same thing here in NZ. Same reason, will be replacing the front sunblind motor plus The headliner is already marked (I think it is not original or has been refitted).

 

I am not in the right country but have you contacted a local head liner shop?
I know anywhere in the states where it's hot all the headliners fail because of the glue letting go regardless of the car brand. So in those area's there are a lot of head liner shops.

I know what your saying as I got into that with the the front "A" pillars. Just a gentle touch and now the material is loose and baggy! I did not want to as you said "fall down the Rabbit Hole"!! but I completely redid the 2 front A pillars and was lucky that it came out fine. Not hard but it's all cosmetics and it has to look right when finished! I was able to reuse the factory material.

Oh one last comment? If at ALL possible try NOT to get into removing the rear parcel shelf! I have worked on a lot of cars and rear parcel shelves but the XJ is a bear!! I pretty much spent 2 solid days taking it in and out plus reading all the threads I could find for tips and tricks. I hope to never do that again!
.
.
.

 

Hi @clubairth1 , happy new year and hope things are well for you.

I will get down to my local trimmer, but thing is, i live nearly 300kms away from the most remote city on the planet, so will check out my options as suggested and get some quotes for the supply and fit.

Club, lol i am not the sort of person that is into calling out geographical location as a reason for exclusivity, thats why we have a forum where all information, speaking for myself, i see as constructive and relevant from all locations around our blue ball. So rest assured your input is always appreciated and respected.

You are dead right about the rear parcel shelf i just so do not want to go there, at the same time i need it finished in a tidy and professional manner, if i can get a decent material match i may be able to avoid refinishing the rear most section of the c pillar that finishes to the edge of the rearmost parcel shelf and rear screen, i just dont want to go anywhere near that job really.
i had to partially undo the rear c pillar from its mount to get the head liner and front c pillar trim around the rear passenger quartar windows, when i refitted i made the mistake of using too much pressure trying to pop the plastic pins in and heard something snap, there are so many plastic fins and things on the inside of that trim piece so i made a booboo there, but apart from that everything else is good to go.
I have to say i have considered using the factory A and B pillar microsuede and simple re fitting as well, but ii feel if ido the headlining i may as well do the pillars too as they are really easy.

@KiwiJon theres a few tips i can give you regarding the front sun blind shade having been there done that.
Get a packet of the correct plastic trim fixing clips, usually sold in packets or 10 from the order i made anyway, note that these are different to the ones that go across the front, and centre and rear fixing points specific to the distance between the sunroofs these are part number: C2D25833 i think there are 9 in total.
The normal trim fixing plastic clips are part number:C2D3465010 and come in packets of 10
if you are going to drop the headlining theyare worthb having in case you happen to snap one or more, or have broken ones existing.
Part number for the complete LHS sunshade motor complete kit is: C2D24886 **note rear sunshade and left sunshade motors are NOT interchangeable as the mounting is handed specific LHS/RHS.
Also order the sunshade track clips C2D30280 and C2D30281 get 2 EACH of these, one set for the REAR sunshade and one set for the FRONT sunshade and replace both as you will need to remove both sunshade blind rolls to install and remove the sun shade motor.

Unforunately my sun shade motor was not just a remoive and refit case, as somewhere between the motor assemblie things have changed and the small geared rollers joing the left and right sides have been amended, be aware your rods that fit into these may NOT fit as mine did not, my originals are keyed, this requires tapping out your old geared rollers and tapping out the new ones to replace these with the originals fitted to your existing motor. The pics only show the new type, not my originals. See pics attached







Its a relatively easy job, but please be patient, you can easily damage your pressed cardboard headliner moreso that if you have never taken on the task before, and again if you are taking the job on by yourself.

I have a full service manual pdf but the forum will not let me upload as it exceeds data file size limit.
A few others which may help are attached..

Any questions just ask, my pleasure to assist as much as i can.

Kind Regards
Benjamin.

 

Be under few illusions that replacing the material on the headliner is not a joke or a task to take on lightly, been there got the scars. Although some make it look easy it is far from it, you can do untold damage to the substrate just getting the old material off the foundation. I would also avoid the foam backed material since although many believe it is the adhesive that fails it is not most of the time, it is the foam that perishes / rots - whatever it is that man made polyester type materials do, this is a degradation that cannot be prevented, ask anyone in the preservation / museum business - plastics degrade over time and there is no stopping it.

Whilst I wouldn't suggest a new one from Jaguar unless you have deep pockets or aneasthetic I would try to find a good one from a salvage yard, I would collect it with a large van too because it absolutely must not be excessively bent.

But now the kicker - to install a headlining requires two people and the windscreen to be removed or you will damage it, I don't doubt some have tried without the windscreen removal and wonder what success they had - not so much a rabbit hole as a black hole ....

 

Awesome Benjamin - thanks so much for taking time to pass on all this. Hugely helpful.

you’ve confirmed I am not in a hurry - so will start collecting the clips and other parts.