New headliner, easy fix!?
 

In an unrelated thread, I read that the owner of an XJR, managed to take out the headliner through one of the back doors, by taking out the bottom of the back seat and moving the front seats all the way to the front, thus not having to remove the windshield or the rear window...

Does anyone know if this is possible on my 1991 XJ40 as well?

Hi Roland,

It is definitely possible to remove your headliner without removing the windshield or backlight. Jaguar created instructions for the procedure, but if I have them they're on a hard drive at home so I'll have to look for them tomorrow night. If I recall, the official method involved removing the center console, front passenger door interior trim, and possibly the front passenger seat (all easy to do). I took photos of the actual recovering process, but since I was in a hurry and both hands were involved in removing the headliner from the car, I didn't take the time to photograph that part of the process:

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I'll try to find Jaguar's instructions for removing the headliner and post them tomorrow night. You might search the archives here and at Jag-Lovers.org to see if you can find them yourself before I get a chance.

Cheers,

Don

Many thanks! I would greatly appreciate any more info you could provide!

I've tried, but could not find the info you suggested...

Again, many thanks for your effort!!!

Roland:

I did the headliner (no sunroof) on my '91 by taking it out through the back seat. You have to fold it in half to make through the opening; and--if memory serves--the front seats have to be brought all the way forward, although I cannot recall if they should be kept upright or reclined. Some say the 'fold line' relaxes enough to be imperceptible after reinstall, but mine still is a little bit visible after a few years. Still, the result was fantastic and cheap. I don't think I paid more than $50 for fabric, glue, and a sunny Saturday afternoon of my time. Make sure you use a wire brush to thoroughly clean off all the old glue and foam.

Almost certainly you will need to purchase a handful or two of new trim fasteners, as most of the now-ancient plastic fasteners will break. I purchased generic ones from the auto store and used a knife to cut them down to size. That should make more sense once you've got the headliner out. :)

Good luck!
Scott

We also have the dreaded drooping headliner syndrome. It it on my List. Don, you must have rebuilt or rehabbed every part of your car. Wow. and Thanks

I'm still looking for the official Jaguar headliner replacement instructions, but one of the keys is to bend the headliner board like a "Taco" shell, with a curve at the bend and not a crease. If you're careful, you can avoid the hard crease that never goes away. I'll keep looking for those instructions!

Cheers,

Don

Here are the Jaguar instructions for removing the headliner. I think I originally found this on the website for a classic car upholstery shop, but it appears to be from a Jaguar Workshop Manual. Note that these instructions are for RHD cars. For LHD cars the headliner will come out the front passenger door. I folded mine into a "Taco shell" bend as I withdrew it from the car. The pink note about the door trim was obviously added by someone else. I'm sorry it's a jpg file rather than a pdf, but this is the format in which I captured it. I hope it's helpful.

Cheers,

Don



https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.jag...ca1ce035aa.jpg

Wow, that's great Don. (Can we get it put in the stickies if it isn't already there?) As stated above, I did mine by folding. But it would be good to get a report on how well this procedure works (Roland??) :)

The only other thing I can add is that you should be prepared for a bit of a mess. Depending on how much the fabric has drooped, there's a lot of dust and orange debris from the old foam underneath.

Good luck!
Scott

Many thanks!!! Much appreciated!!!

This suggests the roof lining is to be taken out trough the front passenger door, which means a lot of stuff has to be removed first...

The post i previously read, suggested that you can take it out through one of the back doors, by moving the front seats all the way forward and only removing the low part of the back seat, which would mean a less time consuming process... IF that even is possible...

Any comments on that would also be much appreciated...

I recently did my '90. For a car with less than 20,000 miles that had been garages it's whole life, it's staggering the headliner was drooping, but anyway.

My car has a sunroof. Using lessons learned from these forums I took mine out through the passenger front door. I removed both front seats and the center console. I didn't removed the passenger door trim. I broke every clip on every trim piece, but as others have said, some glue, some fiddling and some generic fasteners will have you back together in no time.

I got the material at Hancock Fabrics here in the US. Amazingly they sell headliner material (it was way at the back of the store) and they had 5 shades of grey! I took my sunvisor with me to guide me on the color. It's not a difficult job, it's just there's a lot to it. Total cost including glue and fasteners was less than $100

Since it obviously is quite labor intensive, doing it the recommended Jaguar way, I Would really appreciate if anyone could tell me, that it's possible to do it via the back door... ;-)

Yesterday I began taking out the head liner...
Both front seats forward, back passenger seat out and with the back rest of the driver seat all the way down, all doors open, then I managed to pull the board out without any damage through the back door on the driver side... :-)

As said by Sarc, be sure to have enough new clips when doing this.