any recent headliner stories ( replace/clean)
 

I am detailing this year if the car lets me. Any recent people tackle the headliner ??? I see ones on ebay for 150 to 200 bucks. Read its a hell of a job to replace. I have a 99 xk8 convert and my headliner is well embarassing (lol) foam stained etc. I have heard everything from brake cleaner on down the line. I would prefer to clean it as aware though that the stains will come back. Anybody got any new wonder cleaners that worked good ??? If not I will replace and take pics. Would do a video but there will be to many bleeps I am sure (haha)

Scroll down a bit...this topic was covered very recently (in the last week or so). You'll find it.



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The recent thread on headliners was for replacement in a coupe. Sounds like you may have a convertible. (please put your car info in your sig line so answers can be more specific) There are several older threads on 'verts however.

On my 'vert I have used alcohol (Jag recommended), baby wipes (fairly effective) and diluted Simple Green (a little more effective). I have decided to go with replacement since most of the foam-related stains came back very quickly.

I plan to have an upholstery shop put mine on. A friend attempted this with his mustang and ended up paying extra to have a shop finish it after he destroyed part of the install hardware.

As I had mentioned in some older posts, I did my convertible headliner about 3 years ago. If you are careful, detail oriented, and document your disassembly with a camera you can do it yourself. Also give yourself plenty of time (like a weekend). Have a few layers of soft towels to kneel on...your knees will thank you. You will also need a drill and a decent pop-rivet tool.

Some of the other lessons learned:
-Make sure your replacement has the white cloth liner like the original

-Make sure that your replacement has the sewn in plastic hardware, otherwise you will have to cut the stiches on the old hardware and sew all the old hardware into the new headliner.

- The inside rear window frame is also stitched in and needs to be reused unless you buy a genuine Jaguar headliner for big $. Instead of resewing the frame in, headliner adhesive can be used on the inside frame perimeter.

- Make sure to ask your vendor for a couple of yards of extra material to do the matching A-plliars and front roof console headliner. 1 yard is enough, but 2 is wise in case you mess up the first time.

-Behind the headliner you will find tension straps for the outer canvas top also covered with deterioriated foam. Make sure you clean these up and glue new foam on them also...they will improve the outer appearance of the top.

-Make sure you get the correct headliner version. Halfway through 2001 Jaguar changed from a two piece headliner to a one piece headliner.

- Be especially careful when drilling out the rivets for the white tension cords..they need to be reused and will rip up easily if you use too large a drill bit.

tks for the info ( esp white xkr ) lessons learned is always good advice. Yeah the ol knees aint what they use to be !!!! Sure I can do the job but the question is do I want to (lol). Well if I purchase will make sure of your noted points. The headliner is just god awful !!!! And a nice weekend out in the yard have a rum and coke ( near the end of the day !!!) does not sound to bad. Tks again

I have cleaned mine with alcohol, with fairly good results.

Also, I have replaced the A-pillar and roof console on my 'vert with new roof liner material from a local fabric store. The color is very close to the original roof liner and sun visors. Cost was about $25 - 1 yd was more than enough for both A-pillars and roof console.

I would try cleaning the roof liner before replacing. Alcohol is cheap to try first. My roof liner on the console and A-pillar started disintegrating, so replacing was my only option. Was not difficult, and I have enough material left in case I messed up and wanted to do it again!

I tend to use a domestic carpet cleaning machine (VAX) , using the hand tools designed for curtains etc and sometimes a bit of simple green.

This keeps it in a decent state with a spring and end of summer clean.

update
 

Well all I went out and bought ( Canada its called ) Bissell Little Green Compact, Multi-Purpose Cleaner machine. 100 canadian dollars. Needed one anyway for the couch etc. I had a go at the headliner as well as carpets etc. Wow is all I can say. On closer look had little bleed through which it took care of with more work but mostly dirt. There is a powered nozzle which is kinda lame. The other nozzle is the best I found. Hold it back and spray and let soak a bit. It worked great and the liner is lookin good. I can see doing this every couple of years but would not use it on a reg basis as it seems a little hard on top. Anywhoo car looks great. Tks all again. Oh I smoke in the car ( gasp) and this is good for that. Liquid that came out was almost black !!!!

I just searched quickly for the post, but didn't find it. Anyway, the poster was talking about using alcohol to clean his liner, but gave up and used carburetor cleaner. Said it was much better and evaporated rapidly. Might just work.

Chuck
05/XK8 Conv.

ACTUALLY, I think that poster said he used BRAKE cleaner... not carb cleaner:icon_flamethrow:

If youre headliner is not ripped no reason to swap it out. You can cheak my recent post as I recovered my front pillars and upper head section in black suede (alcantra type material) and dyed my plastic parts black. Came out great.

In preparation to dye my headliner I used Tuff Stuff. This product works amazing and can be found at most any autoparts store. My liner was filthy and stained. No longer. Now to find a suitable dye as Im going black allthough the black grey combo isnt all that bad. I used microfiber towels to clean..Youll be amazed how good this stuff works

Spin it around to take it out
 

I did mine on the cheap and re-covered the head liner and parcel shelf instead of buying anew ones.

1, Remove all seats
2, Remove center console ,
3. Remove A pillar covers . B pillar trim etc.
Set parking Brake / chock wheels You will need the shifter moved to D as you slide the headliner out.
Because of the curved shape the BACK of the headliner comes out first.
4, Once the head liner is lose, head the front of it out the driver door enough so that you can spin it around,
then take the back of the liner out the passenger front door

When recovering hard items such as the A pillar and overhead console surround with new fabric is anyone using any kind of foam backing or layer to maintain original profile / look? If so, where can this be purchased?

I am planning on dyeing the headliner on my 98 vert. Do you mind sharing what sort of dye you are using and how you are going to apply it?

You can purchase foam-backed material at most of the larger chain fabric stores. You can also get it at the upholstery shops. It is sold by the yard and not that expensive.

The foam backing is minimal. I used a suede alcantra type material so there is no foam at all. The only issue is that the fabric is a bit harder to stretch at corners and any other type contour.. No foam is needed and it came out wonderful.

As far as the dye I didnt want to use a spray on as I did with my visors. It just didnt come out as nice as id like it touch wise. Its rough feeling. Looks great though.

So I bought dylon black velvet dye. First Im going to do another cleaning of my headliner. Allthough it looks 100 times better I can see where I missed a few spots. It was originally VERY filthy. This particular dye is a powder that you make into liqued form. Ill use a micrifiber towel...GLOVES and lots of interior protection and basically blot it on. I am not going to remove the headliner to do this as it seems like a pain and not needed. Hopefully I dont make too much of a mess and it doesnt need more then one or two applications. I had done some rexearch that lead me to this product and to wan tto apply it in this manner. Ill update with a thread as soon as I do it but have been extremely busy at work. But this should do the trick!

Oh sometimes a photo heps

Well just to update.

I originally cleaned my headliner with tuff stuff which you can buy at any auto parts store in the states. Changed to the original bright grey from filthy yellow brown grey.

The front peices in convertable were to far gone. So I recovered in black suede alcantra material...Dyed the plastics and visors black.

Now being I am dying the headliner in the car I may need to do this several times...One application of teh dye i posted above gave me a charcoal grey color. WHICH matches better than light grey but I really wanted black. Unsure if its the material, that I have to do several applications....Or the dye

Anyway for contrast this is what I ended up. Ill do another round this weekend....Maybe Ill boil off some extra water to make my mix more concentrated

Hi Xxslow, I have the ivory interior. I cleaned my seats ( tried everything else short of recolor), as well as spot clean my headliner. Used a de-greaser from Fuller Brush. Quick spray, soft brush, clean towel. Result, clean headliner, dirty rag. Key, not to let it sit. Repeat if super bad. I hear dawn dish washing fluid works well. Makes sense as it is designed to remove grease from pots and pans. Good luck, Rich

Reb the tuff stuff worked great for cleaning. I use it on all of my cars. My dyeing experience well.....Definitely not black velvet...Hopefully another application will darken. Still better than my grey color. Its the only grey left in my car