1G DSM headliner repair
The headliner on my Talon fell down during storage. Like most cars of this vintage, the foam between the cloth and the backer disintegrated. This failure allowed the cloth to sag off the backer board.
My dad offered to assist in the repair since he has experience in redoing headliners and other interior parts on vintage cars. He began by removing the sun visors and the dome light held in place by Phillips screws. He then gently pried off the covers over the seat belt tracks. These just snap in place. Next he removed the coat hooks from the B pillars. This allowed the rear trim to be removed.
The headliner board is held in place by several plastic push in pins. These he popped out with the appropriate tool. Once these were out the headliner still sat in the front and rear grooves. He carefully worked it out of the rear groove and then lowered the panel and slipped it out the passenger door.
The cloth came off cleanly but the remains of the foam scatter everywhere. He put the cloth in the washing machine to remove the last bits of the foam. While it was washing, he used a stiff wire brush to scrape all the old foam and glue off the backer board. He then used a vacuum cleaner with a brush attachment to remove the last of the dust. He then vacuumed the dust that had scattered in the interior of the car when the headliner was removed.
Once the cloth was clean and dry, he sprayed a thin layer of prepositional glue on the front edge of the backer. He then worked the cloth into recess for the sun visors and dome light. Because the foam was gone, the cloth was not a little too big and some small wrinkles formed in the recesses. The cloth also stretched some due to handling.
He then worked his way back a few inches at a time smoothing the cloth into place on the headliner backer. In order to get all the wrinkles out he had to stretch the cloth slightly. This caused the holes for the push pins at the rear of the panel to not line up. I considered this a minor problem and ignored it.
To reinstall, we passed the headliner through the rear hatch and slipped it into place in the front groove. We then carefully positioned the side tabs in to the correct recesses. Then we worked the board into the rear groove. Reinstallation was defiantly a two man job as it was difficult to maneuver the large board and work the tabs at the same time.
Once the board was in place we replaced the push pins and the snapped the side panels back in place. The small circles in the cloth at the rear are hardly noticeable and the smooth appearance of the cloth with out the foam looks better than the original to me.
UPDATE: The glue did not stand up to the heat. The cloth separated after being parked in the sun. Will have to try to find a better glue.
UPDATE2: My Dad decided to pain the headliner backer board instead of regluing the cloth. Instead of painting it a solid color he painted the Talon logo. I like the look.
