Finally pulled my headliner

[rbruso]

I've searched and read about the best ways to get a headliner out. Some suggested pulling the passenger's front seat, while others said the headliner can come out with the seat in place.

It was time to get the headliner out of my car, as it was crumbling at the slightest touch. That, and I was planning on recovering it in black to match the direction the rest of my interior is going.

I slid the front seats back, put the shifter in reverse, then unbolted the grab handles, dome light and sun visors.

So, here's the problem: big, inflexible headliner and no holes big enough for it to pass through

Slide it back to about here

Tip the headliner forward and slide it between the shifter and the steering wheel

Magically it fits out the passenger door

And yes, those grey seats are going. Gonna put in the black set from my '91 parts car and eventually get the '89 seats recovered in black vinyl/cloth.

 

[SHOdded]

The headliner in my car is starting to look like a bunch of rampaging moths came through there. Will likely have to refinish it soon as well.

 

[kevinspann]

Now try it with the headliner from a moonroof car. SNAP.

 

[JRA2000TL]

I wound up taking my 89 to a shop to get it done. Glad I did. I stopped by to check on it while they had it and found it sitting on a table in two pieces. Sure enough, snap! The sunroof had apparently leaked in the car before and I noticed water stains on the badly damaged headliner. So not only did it split but it was somewhat waterlogged.

I knew the chance of finding a good one with a sunroof cutout was slim at the last minute, so I told them to tape/piece it together the best they could with it. Duct tape or whatever they used, they got it back in one piece and re-covered. Overall it looks ok now--a little lumpy as if they didn't stretch or glue the material down as good as they could have, but I'm ok with it. $150 and no headaches for me. Now, I have to re-cover my own shade. They said they had issues with those louvered ones, so I am going to strip the glue/material off of it down to the plastic and paint it with Ford light titanium interior paint. The shade is still out of the car now.

It should last awhile. I have no reason to be placing my hands on the ceiling of the car or anything like that; so unless the heat pulls it down, it should stay up fine. I cleaned the sunroof drains prior to getting the new headliner installed as well.

 

[rbruso]

Now try it with the headliner from a moonroof car. SNAP.

The parts car is a moonroof car, which is why I'm recovering this headliner and not using the one from the parts car. If I were to try to remove it I would go the same route but would have someone else holding it from the other side. Probably still snap it, though.

On a somewhat related note, the '91 parts car doesn't have ceiling mounted grab handles. Did they do away with them after the '89 model year or were they deleted because the parts car has a moonroof?

Looks like I'll be picking up an extra can of SEM to change these handles to black.

 

[SHOstopper1992]

My Head liner had Coca-Cola stains on it from a can exploding... -_-

 

[Bob Gervais]

My 92 is getting an interior freshening this fall/winter, and new headliner fabric is on the list. Not looking forward to taking it out, but after breaking the headliner board in my truck, and having a chewed up mouse hole to repair, I'm not really all that concerned with snapping the SHO board. I ended up using a two part foam product that a buddy of mine had to repair the broken and eaten through headliner board from the truck. Came out perfect.

 

[kevinspann]

I used Super 90 to glue paint sticks to the areas on the sides of the moonroof hole to stiffen it. Worked great, allowed me to put the headliner in myself. CMFP.

 

[Bob Gervais]

After doing the headliner in the truck, there's no way I'm paying $150 for something I can do myself for around $40. I'll use the saved $110 for booze.

 

[tommyturbo]

I went to the ford rouge factory tour, now I see how they get the headliners in so ez, at least on the trucks. They put it in through the windshield opening before the windshield is installed. Probably how it was done on the taurus too.

 

[SHOdded]

If only you could unzip the windshield

 

[rbruso]

The '91 parts car didn't have grab handles. Not sure if they dropped it after '89 or if it's because the car is a sunroof car. Either way, I was left without black grab handles, and I've grown accustomed to having them there. The dome light from the '91 also wasn't going to work. So, I got some satin black SEM, masked and prepped the parts, then painted them.

I also scraped the old headliner material and foam off and installed new fabric from stockinteriors.com. The new headliner is black, but is showing up like charcoal due to the flash on my camera.

New headliner and newly black dome light:

Headliner, dome light and grab handle:

Upper black plastic is now in place. Now to get the black front seats and black carpet installed, then decide how I'm going to do the dash.

 

[sheenut]

Looks really good

 

[rbruso]

Looks really good

I was pretty happy with how it came out. There is some lumpiness, and I'm itching like crazy from fibers that broke loose from the headliner board.

The front of the board fared the worst. A portion of the backing at the center had totally disintegrated, so I adapted the trick kevinspann used. I took a paint stirring stick and split it lengthwise, then glued it across the gap. I then glued the broken bits to the stick to get it back to level.

Also, turns out neither car had the coat hooks that go at the end of the long plastic pieces. Does anyone have a pair of first gen coathooks in any color?