Headliner

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HREF="http://www.78ta.com/sitemap.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.78ta.com/sitemap.htm"><U><B>Site Map</B></U></A></div> <div> If you have trouble</div> <div> viewing the Java Menu above, click the site map Link above.</div> <div>  <STYLE TYPE="text/css"> BODY { scrollbar-3dlight-color: white; scrollbar-arrow-color: white; scrollbar-base-color: black; scrollbar-darkshadow-color: black; scrollbar-face-color: black; scrollbar-highlight-color: silver; scrollbar-shadow-color: white} } </STYLE>  </div> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <div> <B>Hitman's Pontiac Trans Am Page</B><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" >     |   </FONT><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Lucida Sans" >1978 Pontiac Trans Am</FONT></div> <div> <A HREF="parts.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Parts"><U>Parts</U></A>   |   <A HREF="carb.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Carb Rebuild"><U>Carb Rebuild</U></A>   |   <A HREF="rear.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Rear Gears"><U>Rear Gears</U></A>   |   <A 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TITLE="Carpet"><U>Carpet</U></A></div> <div> __________________________________________________________________________________________________</div> <div> Headliner</div> <div>  <STYLE TYPE="text/css"> BODY { scrollbar-3dlight-color: white; scrollbar-arrow-color: white; scrollbar-base-color: black; scrollbar-darkshadow-color: black; scrollbar-face-color: black; scrollbar-highlight-color: silver; scrollbar-shadow-color: white} } </STYLE>  </div> <div>      Are you looking to repair your headliner or replace it? If you are looking to repair the headliner, it might be a lost cause...... here is why. The original headliners were like a three piece unit. It was a piece of cardboard, followed by a layer of foam, followed by the headliner material. The reason that the headliners start to sag and fall is because the foam layer starts to deteriorate. Since the headliner material is attached to the foam, the liner starts to fall because it doesn't have anything to stick to. If you try to repair the headliner, the foam turns to like dust, so you can't stick the liner material back on because it is like gluing to a layer of dirt.... it won't stay. You would have to remove the headliner with the cardboard, scrape off all of the foam material that is turning to dust and then glue the headliner material to the cardboard itself. Or, you can get a headliner kit from places like Classic Industries which is a one piece unit that you can remove the old and put a new one in there. The kit is about $150.00 for it. So, is $150 worth 4 hours of your time to try and repair your headliner? That is a question you have to answer. I just replaced two headliners and will be posting directions on how to do it up to my site soon. It really isn't a hard job to do it. It took me about an hour or so to replace it.</div> <div>      One thing I should mention first before you start to remove everything is make sure you keep track of what you are removing and where you are removing it from.  It always helps to take photos of the car before you start to remove <IMG SRC="1d6dff8f0.jpg" border=0 width="255" height="143" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">everything.  That way, when you are all done, you can look at the photos if you have a hard time putting it back together.  Also, when you remove something,<IMG SRC="1d6fa1a10.jpg" border=0 width="161" height="161" ALIGN="RIGHT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"> always keep the screws that held in those pieces together with the pieces themselves.  Some people prefer to use little plastic sandwich bags like a ziplock, but I just use pain old Duct tape to hold my stuff.  I mark the peice of Duct tape with the part that I am removing, then tape that to the peice that I removed and set it aside.  You can use whatever works best for you, but just try to keep track of it all.  There is nothing worse than starting a project and then having to delay it a few weeks only to come back and not remember where the screws are or which screws went with which item.  So, take the necessary steps in the beginning and you will be better off.</div> <div>      The first thing you need to do is remove all of the hardware and trim that is holding the<IMG SRC="1d20cc990.jpg" border=0 width="204" height="153" ALIGN="RIGHT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"> headliner up.  Everything is pretty self explanatory, but here is a what you need to remove.  <IMG SRC="1d22c3920.jpg" border=0 width="195" height="146" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">First take down the Sunvisors.  These are held on by three screws each.  Once you have those removed, take down the cover to the front seat belts.  There are only two screws that hold this on.  Now, you can't remove it completely because the seat belt runs through the center of it, but at least you can take it down and let it hang on the belt.  Now you can take the center dome lamp and remove that.  Take off the lens and remove the bulb that is inside.  The bulb is really just resting between two clips.  Inside there will be two posts with like a snap ring on each post.  You can try to remove these carefully or just buy <IMG SRC="1d24d9a30.jpg" border=0 width="217" height="163" ALIGN="RIGHT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">new ones to install it back again.  They are pretty thin metal so it is easy to break them.  Once you drop the dome lamp down, there are two wires that provide power to the dome light.  Unplug those wires and remove the dome lamp assembly completely.  Now that you have all of the extraneous items removed, it is time to start removing all of the trim that lines the outside of the headliner.</div> <div> <IMG SRC="1d72e7ad0.jpg" border=0 width="231" height="173" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">     These are the steps to take down and remove and replace the headliner in a non-T-top car.  I will have the steps to replace a T-top car headliner posted up separately.  The first pieces of trim to remove are the front and the rear pieces of trim.  The front is held on by about four screws and the rear piece is held on by about 5 screws.  These trim pieces need to come off first because they are on top of all of the other <IMG SRC="1d74c9970.jpg" border=0 width="201" height="151" ALIGN="RIGHT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">trim.  Once you get those pieces down, then start at the front of the car and work your way back.  The roof rail trim is a little trickier to remove.  There is only one screw in the front that looks like holds this piece up there, but behind the trim there are actually 3 christmas tree like clips.  Gently rock the trim back and forth to wiggle out these <IMG SRC="1d78d09c0.jpg" border=0 width="208" height="156" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">clips.  If you do it right, you can re-use these clips again to install the trim back once the headliner is in place.  Next remove the two rear sail panels.  These are pretty easy to get to and remove.  The is one screw that holds it in plus another screw that holds the coat hanger clip on as well as holding the panel in place.  Once these screws are removed, slide the panel forward towards the window to remove it.  Now that you have all of the trim pieces removed, you can remove you old sagging headliner and toss it out.</div> <bR> <div>      Time to install the new headliner.  Like I had mentioned above, the new headliner kits are a one piece unit that is premade for your car.  It comes with all of the slot to cut-out to go over the dome lamp, seat belts and sunvisors.</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <IMG SRC="1d7658c20.jpg" border=0 width="600" height="450" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div>      Now, these cut-outs are through the plastic ABS backing and not through the headliner material itself.  You need to make some cross slits where the holes are for the dome light and the sunvisors.  Use a razor blade to make these slits<IMG SRC="1d7add870.jpg" border=0 width="221" height="135" ALIGN="RIGHT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">.  Another thing you want to do is the holes for the sunvisors also have three smaller holes surrounding it.  Yep, you guessed it, these are guides for the three screws that hold the sunvisors in place.  make sure you poke holes through them to line them up properly for re-installation of the sunvisors.  I made the mistake of not doing this and had a hell of a time trying to see how the sunvisor lined back up to screw into the holes.  I ended up taking the headliner back down to poke these holes through the backside so that I knew where the screws went.  So, don't make the same mistake I did, just poke the holes through before you install the headliner.  You don't actually <IMG SRC="1d7c74a10.jpg" border=0 width="372" height="161" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">make slit in the headliner for the rear seat belts, but actually make a cut out of where the seat belts go.  Make sure you measure twice and cut once when you do this.</div> <div>      Now it is time to place the new headliner in place.  There are four tabs located along the outside of the new headliner piece (two on each side) that makes it nice for installing.  You may still need two people to do this, but these tabs make is much easier.  When you place the headliner up into place, make sure you feed the wires through for the dome lamp.  Place the headliner against the roof and these four tabs fit into four slots located along the roof of the car.  These tabs make it nice for holding it in place while you reinstall all of the trim.  I found that the first piece to put back on is the dome light.  The tabs along the outside of the roof hold the sides in place but the middle always seemed to drop down on my head.  So, put the dome lamp back in place with the clips (if you saved them, if not use the new ones) so that the center of the headliner stays in place.  Now you can start installing all of the trim pieces.  Like before, I mentioned to start in the front and work you way back to remove everything.  Well, the opposite is done to install everything again.  Start at the back and work your way to the front of the car.  First put back on the sail panels, then the rear window molding.  Put the rear seat belt covers back in place with their two screws and work you way to the side trim pieces.  Pop those back into place and then install the front windshield trim.  Now you can re-install the sunvisors using the holes you poked through as guides.  And last but not least, put the light bulb back in your dome lamp, clean the trim pieces again,  and you are ready to go.  This project took me about two hours to complete working alone.</div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <IMG SRC="1d7e59030.jpg" border=0 width="345" height="259" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">     <IMG SRC="1d805e070.jpg" border=0 width="350" height="263" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> <IMG SRC="1d82ac410.jpg" border=0 width="428" height="321" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> Now if you have a T-top car and need to install a headliner, then it is alot of the same process as above with just a few more steps.  There are a few other interior trim pieces to remove and a couple of other clips to save, but it is relatively the same.  <IMG SRC="3b7f9c350.jpg" border=0 width="412" height="309" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">The big difference is that you now have to cut the headliner to fit.  Whether you have the Hurst T-top roof or the Fisher T-top roof, the process is basically the same for both.  Now if you have your old headliner board it makes this process much easier.  Basically what you can do is lay your old headliner board over top of the new one.  This makes it easy to line everything up with the seat belt holes and dome light hole and sunvisors hole as described above.  Once you line all of those up and make sure everything is in place (you might want to get some tape or something to make sure that it does not move while you mark your lines) and then you can make your marks.</div> <div> <IMG SRC="3b8125dc0.jpg" border=0 width="293" height="220" ALIGN="RIGHT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div>   Once you have made your marks, then there are a few different choices that you have regarding how to cut out the tops.  It really depends on what you have on hand to work and cut with.  You can use a razor blade or box <IMG SRC="3b8311cd0.jpg" border=0 width="273" height="205" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">cutter to slowly score your way through the ABS plastic.  This process takes the longest, but if that is all that you have on hand, then it will have to do.  You could also use a pair of snips or really heavy duty scissors, but what I really recommend for this process is a cut-off wheel that you can attach to your air compressor.  This is not only the fastest way to do this, but it also offers you pretty good control over<IMG SRC="3b853dee0.jpg" border=0 width="317" height="238" ALIGN="RIGHT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"> what you are cutting.</div> <bR> <div> It really doesn't take too long at all to cut through the board.  One thing to try and do is that when you are cutting through the board is to try and cut through just the ABS plastic board itself and not cut all the way through.  If you cut all the way through, that is ok, don't worry about it, but if you can just cut through the plastic, that is better.  Let me explain why, if you can just cut through the plastic and not through the headliner material on the other side, then you can make the cut out holes just like the rest of the headliner.  Meaning that once you cut the holes through the plastic, you can then go back and cut the headliner with the razor blade about 2 inches inside of that cut you just made.  That way when you <IMG SRC="3baa5f070.jpg" border=0 width="351" height="263" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">remove the plastic that you cut out, you have an extra 2 inches of headliner material that you can then fold around and over and glue it into place just like around all of the outer edges.  Not that does not have to be done, but it makes everything look cleaner and also will better help prevent the headliner from sagging where you just made the cuts.  </div> <div>      Now, once you have all of the cuts made and headliner ready to install again you really just follow the steps above to put the headliner back in place.  Again, this will vary if you have the first <IMG SRC="3bac30e40.jpg" border=0 width="304" height="228" ALIGN="RIGHT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">design or second design Hurst T-top roof, or the Fisher T-tops roof.  One big difference that you have now is that if you remember above about the tow tabs on the side that help hold the headliner in place while you install it?.... well, when you made the cuts for the T-tops, those tabs are no longer there.  So, now this is really a two person job to get the headliner up into place and get the front and rear <IMG SRC="3b874dfa0.jpg" border=0 width="333" height="250" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">headliner trim pieces in first.  Then once those are in (but not tight all of the way), then you can go back and start installing the dome light and sun visors, etc.  To hold the headliner around the t-tops, there are little clips that hold the headliner up (rember above how I said trim to remove and <I>clips to save</I>?).  Just pop back on those clips to hold the headliner in and then re-install the trim that surrounds the opening (if you have it).  This really isn't that hard of a process.  It is better with two people but it can be done with one.  Just take your time and be careful where you make your cuts.  Go back to the old adage of measure twice and cut once.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" 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