On my car, my headliner sags in the rear, behind the cavity for the sunroof above the rear seat. I came up with a temporary repair that looks pretty good to me.
I cut three strips of poplar (no European walnut available), 3/32" thick x 3/4" wide. I stained them & varnished them. I trimmed them to length to fit between the headliner edge moulding and the headliner. The lengths range from 46-1/4" to 49-1/4". I bowed them up against the headliner & worked them behind the moulding. The strips keep the headliner in place & passengers either don't notice or they think it is normal.

 

Hey, I love your idea. I just had a back seat passenger tonight, and he mentioned the sagging head liner. I was trying to think of a good looking "quick fix" and you've just provided the answer. Thanks!

 

I love this idea as I do have the exact same problem (and my son as well in his XJ8) so we might go by a truck load of wood :-)

thanks for that neat idea

Claude
Durham NC USA
1995 XJ6VDP
1991 Audi 100

 

Great idea!

 

Wow, that looks really good.

A few years ago I took my car to a shop and had the entire headliner replaced. It was sagging really bad, all the way up to the sunroof, so I don't think this would have worked for me but it would have in the early stages.

 

I'm ready to take mine apart and spray glue it. But this is lovely idea

 

Did a similar repair to my former '98 XJ8, but used a narow strip of vinyl house siding trim that I had around. The color matched perfectly, and the cutout pattern in the trim made it look better than expected.

 

Great idea, and it doesn't look half bad!

Grssa- don't bother trying to reglue it. I did that but the foam backing is what's deteriorating, so it will only last days if you're lucky. The only solution is a complete replacement.

 

So total rebuild is still second solution, it is too much of work to take off all sealing

 

Great idea and the pictures look nice. Perhaps I am missing it, but how do the moulding strips stay in place?

99 XJR

 

They are tucked between the headliner & the trim above the door. They are long enough that they must be bowed-upwards to fit from one side to the other. It just took a few minutes to install them once I trimmed the lengths to fit.

 

@n_sweeney: Thank you, I tried that with my headliner and it worked just great! I used some figured walnut I had laying around in my shop and made the dimensions similar to yours; 1" wide by 3/16" thick by 46 1/2" to 47 3/4" long. I sanded it well to 280 grit and finished it with Wipe-on Poly which dried thoroughly overnight, then sanded again with 280 to fill the grain. I recoated three times in three hours (a toasty warm day) and installed them that evening. Looks great, and will tide me over until I can have it replaced!

 

Hi All. Just redid the headliner on my 1996 XJ6. The material was obtained from yourautotrim.com . Sand greyPH 1784 was a perfect match for my roof which is a coffee interior(jag oatmeal). Got this advice from the forum here.
I removed the liner through the front windshield because I was having it repaced. Job took less than 2 hours not counting the windshield installation by the glass guys. Some people take it out through the door but did not want to take my door off
Liner peels off and just had to stiff brush the old foam backing from the the liner board.Came off very easily. Used two cans of spray foam and rolled new material over and smoothed out by hand.
Just remember to leave at least 2 inchs excess material when cutting sun roof opening. This gets rolled up and over when reinstalling in car and held in place with the rubber trim piece for the sun roof. The material and spray adhesive cost less than $65.

 

what did that cost, teresa? I just developed the problem in my 2001 vanden plas :-(
thanks