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Hi all I have to remove the headlining board for recovering in my 1997 X300.Is this the flexible type on yhis model or does it have to come out through the windscreen hole.Has anyone tried recovering one in situ in the car ?
Regards Alec
Possible to remove without removing glass. Put shifter in first, sport side and unscrew the knob. Passenger seat all the way back better if you remove as its not difficult. Now just a matter of four hands and a little patience and you can remove out the passenger front door. You can bend it a little with no down side but be careful when doing so to limit as much as possible the amount of curl you have to use to get it out and back in. This is where four hands come to play. I've done it six times on X300's and 305's. Recovering in the car is almost impossible to not get adhesive everywhere.... let alone a smooth finish when done.
I had mine done by a shop and I seem to remember the passenger seat down, but they took it via the rear door. Also, I had looked up all the materials and decided not to do it. The shop told me they fixed many cars that tried to do it in place, not just Jags. Below is a link if you decide to do it yourself
I've done 2 X300's; a SWB and LWB. Took both out the driver's side rear door, but also removed Driver's seat and rear cushion, just because it is not that hard to do....not sure it was necessary.
When I did the headliner on our '93 XJ40, which has the same basic structure as the X300 and X308, I used these instructions as a guide, but I followed some tips from members of the Jag Lovers forum to gently bend the headliner board into a "taco shell" shape so it could be eased out through the front passenger side door (seat reclined all the way back and moved as far rearward as possible):
I had my hands too full to stop and take photos of the removal, but I did take some photos of the recovering process. Here are a few, followed by a link to the rest:
If you opt to tackle this job yourself, use a high-strength spray adhesive specifically designed for headliners with the highest temperature rating you can find (the roof of a car gets very hot sitting in the sun). Some of the more commonly-available brands in the U.S. are 3M, Permatex and DAP Weldwood.
I would NOT use anything in a spray can, need to buy glue that's sprayed from a gun. Most spray can jobs won't make it through one summer, YMMV.
On our '93 I used 3M high-strength high-temperature headliner spray adhesive from standard aerosol cans and six years later the headliner is holding great and looks factory-fresh, despite the brutal summer heat we've endured.
I think it depends both on the product you choose and the proper application technique. There's nothing magical about a spray gun application or the products sold in cylinders or bulk containers for use in spray guns. As can be seen in the brochures at the links below, many of the same 3M adhesives are available in cylinders or drums for spray gun use, or aerosol cans for the do-it-yourselfer:
If you choose the right product and carefully follow the directions on the can, the only reason your headliner will fail is the same reason it failed the first time: deterioration of the foam backing of the headliner fabric itself.
Ok, I'm not here to argue but no one is going to try and convince me the product coming out of a spray can and the product used for a gun are exactly the same. The spray can can has been significantly thinned down and has other diluted properties to allow it to be dispensed through the extremely small spray orifice and to flow under less pressure. Upholsters use guns because the produced can be thinned out less and contains no additional thinners, the spray gun has a larger orifice and is propelled under higher pressure which gives better coverage and more adhesive product with less diluted additives. I'm glad your on your 6th year with yours but others have not had the same luck using spray cans. As I said YMMV.
It's a frivolous argument. I've owned several failed headliners, and witnessed quite a few more. Haven't seen one yet where the adhesive failed. It is the headliner foam that fails, allowing the fabric bonded to it to sag.
That's why your interior is covered in little foam granules during board removal...and why it is generally easy to clean the board off with a stiff brush after removing the rest of the fabric. You aren't brushing the adhesive off, only the foam remnants.
I do WISH that JT was speaking gospel truth, owing to the fact that I boned-up my own headliner redo over a year ago - cutting too close around the sunroof opening and not having enough to fold under the pinch-welt. So if the Texas heat it is parked in every day had destroyed the canned 3M* aerosol adhesive I used, it would be a snap to fix my error. Sadly, that is not the case. Headliner is clinging high-n-tight to the board and there is no foam degradation yet, either. I haven't attempted a redo since, primarily because I've been too busy with higher-priority pursuits/maintenance/fixes...but also because I dread the prospect of removing the new headliner from the board....I reckon I may have to painstakingly shave it off with a case or two of single-edge razor blades, then carefully attack the remaining foam with an adhesive solvent - taking care not to saturate the board and end up with wet-paper.
The reason the experts and even the mobile guys use a gun and not "spray can" is its not superior and they want to do it once and done. It's a HUGE PITA to use a gun and to have to clean it yet they still use it over spray cans because it works the first time under all conditions. I even asked the mobile guy who did my sons HL why he drug around a compressor and gun and he said because the spray cans are not as good as the canned stuff under high heat/humidity conditions and he hates call back jobs.
08-11-2016, 02:11 PM
x300 headlining
