Cloth Interior roof
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True Car Nut
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From: Western MA
For headliner replacement? I haven't seen one yet but the internet is a vast resource. You may want to do a search here first and read up on the experiences of 92-99 owners that have done this already. There are two members, harofreak00 and JohnDeerBoy, that have done some good write-ups. This will at least give you some background information that you can apply to your year.
If you happen to find a tutorial for the 87-91s, please post a link.
If you happen to find a tutorial for the 87-91s, please post a link.
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Originally Posted by tenntexdems
too far gone to pin up...kind of a perfectionist...so..I'd like to replace it......Any how to manuals online for an 89 LE ?
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From: 1989 Bonneville LE
I think I will do this myself with a buddy. I have no idea how to take the interior roof off though.....hopefully I wont screw anything up too bad...I'm gonna search online for gray fabric......So I need 2 yards according to one of the posts.......I'm pretty new at all this reconstructive stuff..so if anyone has any more insight...feel free to enlighten me.......Thanks peeps......
Bryan
Bryan
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From: Western MA
Yep, 2 yards for the headliner is what you'll need. You will have extra that will need to be trimmed after glue up.
Get the 3M Super 90 spray adhesive instead of the 77. Also, follow the directions on the can when it says to spray both parts (headliner foam and headliner board) and let it sit for a couple of minutes. I have determined that this was my mistake when I did mine. I smoothed the fabric in one area while the adhesive was still too wet. It soaked through the foam to the colored material causing it to be indented. I have a faint hand mark in the final product that really never came out.
Get the 3M Super 90 spray adhesive instead of the 77. Also, follow the directions on the can when it says to spray both parts (headliner foam and headliner board) and let it sit for a couple of minutes. I have determined that this was my mistake when I did mine. I smoothed the fabric in one area while the adhesive was still too wet. It soaked through the foam to the colored material causing it to be indented. I have a faint hand mark in the final product that really never came out.
Executed
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From: Purgatory
I've replaced the headliner in my '87 (just like your 89). It wasn't hard and i just followed what i read on the internet.
As for removal, it came out of my passenger font door. Not much of a problem. even did it by myself.
Do listen to what the earlier post said about adhesive. don't cop out on it or you'll be SORRY. 2 cans of the $15 3m stuff they mentioned should be about enough.
It was a little annoying to remove the interrior trim parts required to get the headliner out.
It is held in place by #1) three rows of industrial velcro. One row (each row consists of 3 small strips) towarsd the front, another near middle, last row near rear.
But before you can do that you have to remove the sun visors, the the courtesy lights up front, the coat hanger things on the back as well as carefully plucking up the rear courtesy lights (don't have to remove the whole thing just pull it up from the car'* wall so that it hangs there, try to be easy and not hurt the plastic screws holding it in place. they are of the same type as hold your door panels in in case you know how they look/work).
Anyway once those things are off there is still a few more things. You'll notice there is plastic trim running on the perimeter of the headliner. you'll have to carefully pull these out of place some so as to no longer hold the headliner up. --
Before taking this off, take off the trim piece that rides up the (A?) pillar (i.e. the pillars on the left and right of your windshield. You sorta have to play with them (as with all of the trim) and youll get them out. THen you can proceed...
-- Basiclly follow the trim till you see that it ends (and joins more trim). This occurs (for the front) near the door hinge along the same height as the brake release handle. Start plucking CAREFULLY from there. But also, if you follow that same trim up the door rim to the top rear corner of where the door'* glass is, you'll see a triangular area of this same trim. You'll have to carefully pluck that up too because it holds down some of the trim too.
Note that I did all this trim plucking on my own and without a manual, so as long as you are patient and look at what you'll be pulling up you should be ok
This procedure is the same for the left side as it is for the right side of the car'* trim. I DID HOWEVER crack this trim at one point because i got too anxious and pulled it down too hard. So just be careful
All of the afforementioned trim is held in place on its underside by clips. As you remove the trim, sometimes, the clip will remain on the car'* frame. When its all been removed, simply take them off the car'* body and put them back in place on the underside of the trim, it will be just as good as new.
Alright, with all this trim off of it'* regular place (AGAIN, don't have to completely remove it from the car, just have it so its off where it normally sits so that it no longer restricts the headliner) you can reach in between the headliner and the car'* roof and with your hand disconnect the headliner from the roof (should at this point only be held by the industrial velcro i mentioned). at that point it will be off. now just jimmy it out of the front passenger'* door.
It WILL bend some and you might end up bending it too much at some edges and will probably tear the fiberglass body of the headliner a little here and there but DONT WORRY, I had like 2 small rips when it was said and done and a small strip of ductape to reinforce the rips was more than enough. You'll NEVER notice any defect when you're done with the job.
Now take the headliner to the garage or back patio. Notice the holes / shapes for the visor pieces and coathangers, etc. You dont need to make any detailed drawings, just see wat they are like.
Shed a tear for the 17 year old material that is now going to the trash
then get all that old junk off!
When its nice and clean of old material get your new headliner material ( i bought mine at a fabric store, they know what it is, but if they dont just tell em its like fabric backed with foam). and lay it over the fiberglass.
When its in a good position (completely covering the fiberglass) mark off the holes for the coat hangers and sun visors and front courtesy lights, etc with a marker. i just marked it off with a dot or two WITHIN the area of the hole, DO NOT trace the hole with a marker, you'll end up cutting off way too much. UNDERESTIMATE the size of the holes rather than overestimate. You can get away with having too-small holes for all those objects. Because the parts sit OVER the headliner the coathangers / visors only really need holes for screws to go through and the courtesy light just needs space for it to fit in snugly and have screws go through. In addition, if you underestimate a hole too much you can at least just cut more fabric off later. So now that you've marked it, cut off holes similar (but a little smaller for safety) than the old headliner'* holes.
Now take your cans of adhesive (they are supposed to come with a little nozzle attachments that fans the spray out, or else it tends to shoot out like silly string and that will show up sometimes through the headliner, in other words, check and be sure the can has the little tip before you walk out the store, if unsure, just compare with other cans in the store and make sure its got the same heads as the others.). ...
I read that its best to work the material maybe about a half foot into the headliner at a time:
i.e. with the headliner fabric in place, go to the bottom of the headliner and roll up about 6 inches of fabric.spray the fiberglass and the underside of headliner fabric (for the 6 inches you rolled up), follow any instructions from the can about letting it sit for a few min, etc and then place it back in place. Lightly (with your hand or with a soft towel or something) push down on the fabric to ensure a good bond.
-At this point the bottom 6 inches of the fabric should be bonded to the headliner. now that serves as an 'anchor' so you can go to the top of the headliner and roll it allllll the way back to where the whole fiberglass is exposed (except the 6 inches you just glued on at the bottom).
With it rolled down like so, start gluing down 6 inches or so at a time (again the same way you did the first 6 inches). The more comfortable you get the more willing you'll be to do more and more inches at a time, i dont recommend doing more than 10-12 (MAX) or you might get sloppy!
While gluing/ laying down the material, pay special attention to the curved sections of the headliner, make sure you allocate material appropriately to these spots and that none of this is stretched in place, if you stretch any of it, it will allways have that elasticity causing a tendency to come off (not good
)
When you're done gluing and you let it bond overnight you can trim the excess headliner fabric that is hanging off the edges of the fiberglass. DO NOT TRIM IT ALL OFF. The idea is that you will now use some adhesive to fold/glue a little of this excess over the headliner fiberglass.
Alright so now your headliner is ready to go back into the car. Put it in place (reverse the removal).
When putting it in, the velcro should be enough to hold it in place for the time it takes you to get a some of the roof-perimeter trim in place to hold it up completely.
Now start to position and put the visors/coathangers/courtesy panel back on. Sometimes its tricky to get a screw to go in place but you'll get it.
Well that about does it. I appologize for not checking my grammer and spelling at all places but it is 2:00 AM in the morning.
I did this on my '87 bonnie and then a few days later on my cousin'* '90 beretta. I skimped and bought a cheaper adhesive and on the curved areas of the headliner, the material has unglued :( , my cousin did not skimp on adhesive, bough tthe GOOD stuff and his is PERFECT.
(NOTE the reason i skimped was because i couldn't find the correct adhesive ...)
Have fun with it and remember, even if you screw up it will just cost you some time and about 20 bucks for new material. It'* not not nuclear war
Feel free to ask me any questions! I try to check the board often but am bogged with work with my double major
-Mike Diaz
As for removal, it came out of my passenger font door. Not much of a problem. even did it by myself.
Do listen to what the earlier post said about adhesive. don't cop out on it or you'll be SORRY. 2 cans of the $15 3m stuff they mentioned should be about enough.
It was a little annoying to remove the interrior trim parts required to get the headliner out.
It is held in place by #1) three rows of industrial velcro. One row (each row consists of 3 small strips) towarsd the front, another near middle, last row near rear.
But before you can do that you have to remove the sun visors, the the courtesy lights up front, the coat hanger things on the back as well as carefully plucking up the rear courtesy lights (don't have to remove the whole thing just pull it up from the car'* wall so that it hangs there, try to be easy and not hurt the plastic screws holding it in place. they are of the same type as hold your door panels in in case you know how they look/work).
Anyway once those things are off there is still a few more things. You'll notice there is plastic trim running on the perimeter of the headliner. you'll have to carefully pull these out of place some so as to no longer hold the headliner up. --
Before taking this off, take off the trim piece that rides up the (A?) pillar (i.e. the pillars on the left and right of your windshield. You sorta have to play with them (as with all of the trim) and youll get them out. THen you can proceed...
-- Basiclly follow the trim till you see that it ends (and joins more trim). This occurs (for the front) near the door hinge along the same height as the brake release handle. Start plucking CAREFULLY from there. But also, if you follow that same trim up the door rim to the top rear corner of where the door'* glass is, you'll see a triangular area of this same trim. You'll have to carefully pluck that up too because it holds down some of the trim too.
Note that I did all this trim plucking on my own and without a manual, so as long as you are patient and look at what you'll be pulling up you should be ok
This procedure is the same for the left side as it is for the right side of the car'* trim. I DID HOWEVER crack this trim at one point because i got too anxious and pulled it down too hard. So just be careful
All of the afforementioned trim is held in place on its underside by clips. As you remove the trim, sometimes, the clip will remain on the car'* frame. When its all been removed, simply take them off the car'* body and put them back in place on the underside of the trim, it will be just as good as new.
Alright, with all this trim off of it'* regular place (AGAIN, don't have to completely remove it from the car, just have it so its off where it normally sits so that it no longer restricts the headliner) you can reach in between the headliner and the car'* roof and with your hand disconnect the headliner from the roof (should at this point only be held by the industrial velcro i mentioned). at that point it will be off. now just jimmy it out of the front passenger'* door.
It WILL bend some and you might end up bending it too much at some edges and will probably tear the fiberglass body of the headliner a little here and there but DONT WORRY, I had like 2 small rips when it was said and done and a small strip of ductape to reinforce the rips was more than enough. You'll NEVER notice any defect when you're done with the job.
Now take the headliner to the garage or back patio. Notice the holes / shapes for the visor pieces and coathangers, etc. You dont need to make any detailed drawings, just see wat they are like.
Shed a tear for the 17 year old material that is now going to the trash
then get all that old junk off!When its nice and clean of old material get your new headliner material ( i bought mine at a fabric store, they know what it is, but if they dont just tell em its like fabric backed with foam). and lay it over the fiberglass.
When its in a good position (completely covering the fiberglass) mark off the holes for the coat hangers and sun visors and front courtesy lights, etc with a marker. i just marked it off with a dot or two WITHIN the area of the hole, DO NOT trace the hole with a marker, you'll end up cutting off way too much. UNDERESTIMATE the size of the holes rather than overestimate. You can get away with having too-small holes for all those objects. Because the parts sit OVER the headliner the coathangers / visors only really need holes for screws to go through and the courtesy light just needs space for it to fit in snugly and have screws go through. In addition, if you underestimate a hole too much you can at least just cut more fabric off later. So now that you've marked it, cut off holes similar (but a little smaller for safety) than the old headliner'* holes.
Now take your cans of adhesive (they are supposed to come with a little nozzle attachments that fans the spray out, or else it tends to shoot out like silly string and that will show up sometimes through the headliner, in other words, check and be sure the can has the little tip before you walk out the store, if unsure, just compare with other cans in the store and make sure its got the same heads as the others.). ...
I read that its best to work the material maybe about a half foot into the headliner at a time:
i.e. with the headliner fabric in place, go to the bottom of the headliner and roll up about 6 inches of fabric.spray the fiberglass and the underside of headliner fabric (for the 6 inches you rolled up), follow any instructions from the can about letting it sit for a few min, etc and then place it back in place. Lightly (with your hand or with a soft towel or something) push down on the fabric to ensure a good bond.
-At this point the bottom 6 inches of the fabric should be bonded to the headliner. now that serves as an 'anchor' so you can go to the top of the headliner and roll it allllll the way back to where the whole fiberglass is exposed (except the 6 inches you just glued on at the bottom).
With it rolled down like so, start gluing down 6 inches or so at a time (again the same way you did the first 6 inches). The more comfortable you get the more willing you'll be to do more and more inches at a time, i dont recommend doing more than 10-12 (MAX) or you might get sloppy!
While gluing/ laying down the material, pay special attention to the curved sections of the headliner, make sure you allocate material appropriately to these spots and that none of this is stretched in place, if you stretch any of it, it will allways have that elasticity causing a tendency to come off (not good
) When you're done gluing and you let it bond overnight you can trim the excess headliner fabric that is hanging off the edges of the fiberglass. DO NOT TRIM IT ALL OFF. The idea is that you will now use some adhesive to fold/glue a little of this excess over the headliner fiberglass.
Alright so now your headliner is ready to go back into the car. Put it in place (reverse the removal).
When putting it in, the velcro should be enough to hold it in place for the time it takes you to get a some of the roof-perimeter trim in place to hold it up completely.
Now start to position and put the visors/coathangers/courtesy panel back on. Sometimes its tricky to get a screw to go in place but you'll get it.
Well that about does it. I appologize for not checking my grammer and spelling at all places but it is 2:00 AM in the morning.
I did this on my '87 bonnie and then a few days later on my cousin'* '90 beretta. I skimped and bought a cheaper adhesive and on the curved areas of the headliner, the material has unglued :( , my cousin did not skimp on adhesive, bough tthe GOOD stuff and his is PERFECT.
(NOTE the reason i skimped was because i couldn't find the correct adhesive ...
)Have fun with it and remember, even if you screw up it will just cost you some time and about 20 bucks for new material. It'* not not nuclear war
Feel free to ask me any questions! I try to check the board often but am bogged with work with my double major
-Mike Diaz
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From: 1989 Bonneville LE
MIke, thanks for the support and help. Doesnt seem like it will be too bad of a job...I know how you feel, I did a double major in college as well..take care buddy..
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