That's awesome, it looks great phil, but now I'm confused. Did you paint your headliner and everything else or did you swap the fabrics?

 

A bit of both.
Replaced the a pillars and preeminent headliner at light cluster with alcantara suede, and sprayed the convertible top headliner with the fabric spray. They match very well!! Better than stained gray!

 

OUTSTANDING HIGH DIVE!

My coupe came with a tan alcantara top and A-pillars, but they never did the gray visors and just left them off. I've been wrestling with just painting them and re-installing. It may take a few more coats to go from gray to tan, but I'll give it a go.

Now to take the whole friggin' headliner down to get to the visor-lite wires. Do we have a video for headliner removal?

THANKS!!!!

 

Please PLEASE lots of pics of the gray mustang headliner, before and after.

 

The wires are actually attached to the visor clip, not the visor it's self. You "may" be ale to get to them from the light cluster opening. They're clipped beside the cluster plugs.

I almost didn't re install mine. The mirror flaps are broken and it looked so good without them but they actually hold up the small headliner over the window.

 

Please periodically update this thread on how your painted headliner holds up as time passes. I would expect that after hundreds of ragtop open/close cycles, the painted fabric will show permanent creases or paint crack lines where it folds up. But that's still probably far preferable to looking at ugly stains....

 

I'll say that when I started the close cycle, I watched the headliner and it freaked me out because it looked like crumpled paper as it was closing. Once it latched, it pulled tight and looked factory new.
I don't think this will crack over time. Hard to explain the finish. Has a sort of raw linen texture. I tested it on the a pillar scraps I removed, let it dry over night and stretched and folded and not any sign of wear. And I contacted duplicolor and they said they've had no negative feedback expert that it takes more than they suggest if a solid finish is wanted.
And a friend used it on his dining room chair seats a year ago and it still looks perfect.

 

I don't completely understand what you did. I do like the suede on the A-pillars and piece over the windshield and I believe you actually used suede fabric mounted to these pieces--correct? But then you talk about spraying a bunch of stuff with some vinyl spray--was that the headliner piece under the convertible top? I can't visualize what this fabric spray would be but I would worry that it would crack or peel over time but, again, I am not familiar with this product. Couldn't you have gone to some upholstery shop and have them fabricate some replacement headliner out of the same suede you used for the A-pillars?

Doug

 

I did go to the three trim shops in town and they all gave me ridiculous installation prices. It's a pretty major job to remove the headliner. And there isn't a factory black one, and to custom make a black one was through the roof. I think the cheapest quote to replace was about 1000.00
I did cover all the pieces around the front windshield with the alcantara suede fabric since you really see it with the top down. I sprayed the visors though, since they're very difficult to recover.
For the actual convertible top headliner that folds back, I tried this Duplicolor Vinyl and Fabric spray paint. It's formulated to remain flexible and not crack or peel. I masked all of the edges of anything not being painted, covered the interior with sheets and started spraying in the back with long even overlapping strokes. First coat showed overlaps so with three more coats, it was perfect.
It does change the texture of the fabric. A friend says it feels like the exterior of the top and if I had not told him I painted it, he would never had known.
Now this may not be for everybody, but I would rather save the 1000+ dollars for more important repairs. And if the product does as it claims, and seems to be, it was a perfect option.

 

Phil has his financial priorities in check. I might do this to mine. Where did you buy the duplicolor fabric paint? What about the black suede?

 

The IPO that did the Alcantara mod just "CUT" the wires to the sunvisors! The ends are up there somewhere.

You say the wires come out from the overhead light cluster?

If that's the case, I just might take a peak in there. It could save me a hell of a lot of work.

 

Nice one Phil, looks great, thanks for sharing

 

Yes, when you pull the light cluster, there will be two sets of wires plugged into it. one on each side of the cluster. Those have nothing to do with the visors. BUT, beside each of those harnesses, there should be two small plugs mounted right beside them. Those are the visor wires. Remember, the visors aren't wired through the actual visor. It's the visor clip beside the light cluster that actually has the hot wires. You can mount the visor and clip and have functioning visors for sunshields, but the connection between the inner visor clip and the visor clip bar that makes the connection.
Like I said, my visors didnt work anyway since the mirror flaps had broken and I assume the light switch has something to do with that.
I'll try to take a pic of the visor connections when I re install my Bluetooth mic. Right now it's hanging down and I need to attach a permanent mic attachment.

On another note, I'm not happy with the former airbag labels on the visors now that I painted them. The driver side had been half peeled off so now I see a shiny, ragged label. I'm trying to think of something I can put on each visor to hide those spots. Maybe a jaguar logo or something. Any suggestions would be great! I'd even put new airbag labels if available.

 

Phil, great job and thank you for taking the time to post the DIY w/pics!

 

Another day of several top openings and closings and no signs of any wear. No cracking or flaking.
Keeping fingers crossed!!
The lighter colors WILL take even more to cover stains. If they will at all.
Tested the beige on my brothers mustang liner and even with three coats, it seems to show shadow lines of the stains. They seem to dry a bit off. I think we're going black with his too!!!

 

Man, well done- that looks like a real quality job. Impressive! This is something I still need to do. Your before pics are my headliner all over. Around the windshield is OK luckily.

I LURVE Alcantara. My S8 has that full package (factory) in black and it's glorious.

 

If only you had an XKR...

 

Lmfao!!
I thought the pic was sunglasses until I enlarged pic ha ha ha

 

I just ordered some and I'm going to give it a try. The grey headliner is getting a bit dirty and just like you, I drove around to different places and asked how much it would cost to make a black one... $1000+ from 3 different places. One place said $400 or so if I remove it and install the new one myself, but these seem to be quite difficult to remove. Paint and protective covering should be less than $40 total. 4 cans cost $33 from Amazon, so I'm good to go! Hopefully I'm happy with the results!

 

A few helpful tips.
Pull the carpet from behind the seats.
Side poster board between the rear glass and headliner. Then tape that to glass.
Mush easier than taping edge of glass.
Use old sheets or packing blankets to cover entire interior. And lay over open doors.
Spray outside. Needs a breeze to blow out fumes. Wear a mask.
Being a contortionist helps. And be prepared to take breaks. It gets pretty strong inside with fumes even though it Dries fast but it took me about 2 hours due to so many coats.
AND, don't forget the back of liner around door windows. These places show when top is down. I popped the two plastic rivets near front, wearing gloves, I held back liner and sprayed as far in as I could, all the way to the back of top.
The paint dried flattish so even where I got some on the front latch bar, it doesn't show.