'Eyebrow' Headliners

Finally got around to doing the 'eyebrow' headliners. These are steel stamped plates covered with glued-on fabric-backed vinyl. The steel had become heavily surface-rusted and this had pushed off and to some degree distorted the vinyl surface. The glue itself hadn't survived particularly well, either. The vinyl came off just by pulling up the fold-over sections. The vinyl itself had survived pretty well for it's age, however, although the small bumps from the rust, and other distortions formed around screw holes and places where the headliner touched the body, were impossible to get rid of. The fold-around edge locations were definitely there to stay, but this helped to put the vinyl back on exactly as it was originally.

 Below, the basic steel forms, de-rusted and painted with a rust-paint.

 

 

The vinyl glued back on, using 3M's High-Tack Spray Adhesive. The vinyl insisted on keeping most of it's original shape, and to counter this the internal edges were taped down after painting to prevent slow curling and hopefully eliminate future delamination. The cut of the vinyl is factory original; that's how it looked originally. Not pretty, but it did the job.

 

Test fit of both headliner halves. That is not their original colour - they were white, as was clearly shown by the areas that had remained hidden. That's just 50 years of dirt, possibly combined with cigarette smoke, who knows.



Finally painted the halves with the excellent paint for vinyl used for the roof headliner.

Just an after and before view. Note how screw holes and top edges do not lign up. Welcome to quality control, 1960-style.

All three original headliners, roof and eyebrow, installed with their original vinyl. Very happy to have been able to keep them.