My neighbor wants help reattaching the headliner of his rather old Toyota to the roof. It's the part in front of the rear windows. Quite a bit, going forward 15" and sideways 2 feet.
The roof has a layer of foam rubber, I guess it is, on it, and the headliner is cloth with what seems like a thin layer of the same foam rubber, which probably stuck to the cloth when it fell down.
How would you fix it?
After I said "glue" and couldnt' decide what kind, he told me he would reimburse me if I bought it. A little later he seemed to want me to fix it and he'd pay me. I don't want to fix it, but I do want to give him the best advice I can.
glue does not work because the foam base is falling apart. i have a 2000 voyager, the headliner failed and was falling down. after glue didnt last i pulled down all the headliner material/
it was a bit dusty for awhile. but its been like this for several years. a real quick fix, free too.
I went thru this hassle on an old Chevy. The headliner (not headling), was falling and was flapping against the top of my head of I had the car windows open. All that foam crap was falling and making a mess too.
I tried a stapler, apolstery tacks, that did not last long. I bought some spray adhesive, cut slits in the fabric, sprayed this adhesive into these slits, and pressed it tight. That made a mess, and it still was soon falling again. Finally, I just ripped out the entire headliner, (the cloth, the foam, and the cardboard under it), right to the bare metal. Problem solved!
I considered gluing some farbic right to the metal, like felt, but I never did, and the car went to the junk yard some years later, just like that.
One problem I encountered was the dome light wires were only held up by the headliner. I found some self adhesive pads made to attach mirrors to a wall. They worked well to adhere the wires to the metal ceiling.
Anyone who ever owned a 70s GM car knows about this and you are pretty much screwed. As they say, nothing sticks to crumbling foam. Most of the "fixes" involved pinning up the headliner with anything from thumb tacks to dritz pins screwed into the cardboard backing. If you made a neat pattern out of the pins it look almost like it was done on purpose. The only real fix is to replace the headliner.
I used "very" small pins, lots of them, spaced about an inch apart to repair the headliner on a 2000 Lincoln that was making it hard to use the rear view mirror. It's held up fine for a year or more now. The low tech tech repairs are very satisfying 8-)
After my Cadillac was broken into years ago and they attempted to steal it they stole my radar detector. When they ripped it out it caused the headliner to droop. The best advice I can give you to pass along to your neighbor is take it and have it professionally re-installed. They will do an excellent job and no one will ever know it was beginning to droop and flap in the wind.
The reason I say this is they are professional installers and it will look professional whereas you and your neighbor are not and it will show it was a dyi project.
Thanks, but. Not much in this world scares me, but spray-on adhesive is one that does. I don't want it gluing my lungs together. I did buy a can once. I can't remember what I used it for, but I know I used it outside.
Using it inside a car scares me a lot and no respirator would make me comfortable.
It didn't end in the 70's. The car I ripped out the headliner was a mid
80's GM.
Just tearing off JUST the cloth makes an even bigger mess. That foam falls everywhere and it's real sticky. When I ripped down the whole headliner, I put a blue tarp across the inside of the car to catch all the crap that fell. That "cardboard" is not corrigated, it's a thick (close to 1/8") solid material. That foam is adhered to it, and cant easily be scraped off. (my ORIGINAL plan was to remove the cloth and paint the cardboard). NO WAY!!!
After ripping it out, I tossed it in a pile and burned it. It's extremely flammable!!!
I don't know the answer, but I can tell you what WON'T fix it: spray-on adhesive.
I had a Plymouth/Mitsubishi Laser in the late '90s, and one time I had to get the windshield replaced due to a pebble kicked up from the road that cracked it. I had one of those services come and do it in the parking lot while I was at work. It had been a very hot day, and when I came out to the car later, I found that the glue they had used to replace the windshield had softened and warped all the plastic trim inside the car. A few weeks later, the fabric roof lining also started detaching from the foam liner, until it was like a pillow sitting on my head while I drove.
Eventually I tried removing the cloth completely and re-gluing it to the foam with spray adhesive. It didn't last - within a week or two, it was coming down again. I tried brushed contact cement, but it, too failed. The foam wasn't crumbling, but neither would it stick permanently to the cloth.
I drove the last few months of the car's life with just the foam, and then bare metal. The car had multiple other problems and was finally donated for the tax deduction.
I'll have you know 80% of my jobs look as good as a pro would do, but I agree that this one woudln't. And it woudl take far longer than some glue and stick would.
Thanks all. I'll send him all your suggestions except the spray-adhesive.
It was a delicate process. It's been awhile, as best I recall, the pins were regulare straight pins, the kind purched for dress making, only they were 1/2". Very small with flat heads. The pins did not pull through. I created one slight tear by pulling on the fabric too much. The sun had weakened the fabric, rather than stretch to get it to look right, I used more pins. You can't tell anybody was there because of the location of the repair. You can't the pins from outside and you have to crane to see from the back seat.
I didn't use those. I used straight pins. Just use short straight pins while at amazon. Or go local, a Joann's or a Walmart.
I'm not sure what you are referring to. The material that was under the headliner was a pressed foam. It took the pins wo any ado. The pins did not come on cardboard, they came in a plastic box.
I had this happen to the lining on the removable hardtop on my '95 Corvette. The BLACK liner had a thin layer of black foam rubber which was affixed to the fiberglass. As we've all seen, I'm sure, the rubber began to disintegrate and was nothing but a handful of micro-mouseturds.
Likely, that's what you'll find when you remove the liner.
I was fortunate, as I said, in that the liner itself was black and I was able to find some black stretch type fabric with a similar foam backing at one of the "big box" fabric stores. I turned the top upside down on a blanket and removed both the liner and all the rubber foam which remained on the top using a stiff brush and vacuum cleaner. I then masked off the area and sprayed it with a 3M aerosol adhesive (like contact cement) and with the help of SWMBO gently laid a large piece of the foam backed material onto the inverted roof panel very slowly as we gently brushed it into place to avoid creases.
I went to have a couple of beers and let it dry overnight. The next day, using about four brand new single-edged razor blades, I carefully trimmed it to fit which was tedious as there was no trim, per se, the fabric pad just goes onto the roof panel.
That repair had been in place for about 6 years when I traded that 'Vette in on a newer model and it still was solid.
Your friend's problem is that he likely needs to match a fabric color other than black. He can try replacing the foam but he's going to have to be very careful not to tear it loose any further as he makes his repairs. OTOH, if the rear is disintegrating now, the rest of it will likely be doing the same on a continuing basis. He can try and find some foam and use an appropriate adhesive to first affix it to the roof panel and then after that sets, hit it with the adhesive again and put the lining back in place, glued to the foam.
This will likely result in a short term fix but if he's going to keep the car - or it's worth keeping - maybe he should look to remove all the crap up there now and then repair it sections from front to rear using the same general technique.
Yeah, I think the curly pins are a bad idea, because there is not enough room to screw them in all the way
Thank you for both new answers. I'll send one to him. and I'm sorry the other about cardboard was confusing. I meant what others have said is cardboard behind the foam, but another answer already described it as
1/8" cardboard.
Thicker than a cereal box and firmer than corrugated. But not so firm a pin won't go in it.
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