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Hey all, well I'm back again, racking my brain trying to install a new headliner I got from Macs.
I've searched headliners on this site a few times but haven't really found anything relevant to what my issues are.
Basically, I've got the bows installed and the headliner in the car, ready (or so I thought) to start stapling it along the tack strips. The shop manual says to install the rear bows and work your way to the front, and then staple the front (from the center working your way out), then staple the back and work your way down the sides.
So I started doing this and figured when I staple the back, I'll only staple the top along the top of the rear windshield and then do the sides when I come back down. The front was looking okay so we made our way stapling along the tops of the doors, doing section by section, left side, right side, left side, right side, etc as to make sure everything is uniform. By the time we made it to the sides of the rear window, it was too tight and the corners weren't lining up properly.
Also we were noticing as we stapled above the doors from the front, it was getting pretty clumped up and loose/sagging/wrinkly. Seems there's too much material but I'm worried about snipping anything where I shouldn't and ruining the whole thing before I investigate further into what I'm doing wrong.
From what I've read, people say to use steam or a heat gun to take some of the wrinkles out near the end but it seems like a lot of wrinkles and sagging for the heat to take out so I'm wondering how much sagging/wrinkles a heat gun will take out. Should it be pretty tight to start with? I've also noticed the front couple of bows are really tight to the roof and are hard to move, I'm not even sure that they're perfectly straight across at this point, despite the seems looking straight, perhaps this could be an issue?
Another random thing that I didn't take notice of when I was taking out the old headliner, was that where the front couple bows go, there are 2 holes that the bow ends go into, one higher than the other. I tried the lower holes and there was no bow tension against the roof, but the higher ones are pretty tight. Does this even matter? Of course we then noticed a small tear near one of the seams (I believe it was there from the start) so I'm hoping it doesn't get worse. I might try to call Macs and see if there's anything they can do.
We also have a steamer so I was thinking about steaming the headliner during installation to help loosen it up, figuring it will tighten up at the end.
Essentially there are several questions in this exhausting description, which all boils down to, where did I go wrong and are there any tips/info that you guys can offer me?
I've searched headliners on this site a few times but haven't really found anything relevant to what my issues are.
Basically, I've got the bows installed and the headliner in the car, ready (or so I thought) to start stapling it along the tack strips. The shop manual says to install the rear bows and work your way to the front, and then staple the front (from the center working your way out), then staple the back and work your way down the sides.
So I started doing this and figured when I staple the back, I'll only staple the top along the top of the rear windshield and then do the sides when I come back down. The front was looking okay so we made our way stapling along the tops of the doors, doing section by section, left side, right side, left side, right side, etc as to make sure everything is uniform. By the time we made it to the sides of the rear window, it was too tight and the corners weren't lining up properly.
Also we were noticing as we stapled above the doors from the front, it was getting pretty clumped up and loose/sagging/wrinkly. Seems there's too much material but I'm worried about snipping anything where I shouldn't and ruining the whole thing before I investigate further into what I'm doing wrong.
From what I've read, people say to use steam or a heat gun to take some of the wrinkles out near the end but it seems like a lot of wrinkles and sagging for the heat to take out so I'm wondering how much sagging/wrinkles a heat gun will take out. Should it be pretty tight to start with? I've also noticed the front couple of bows are really tight to the roof and are hard to move, I'm not even sure that they're perfectly straight across at this point, despite the seems looking straight, perhaps this could be an issue?
Another random thing that I didn't take notice of when I was taking out the old headliner, was that where the front couple bows go, there are 2 holes that the bow ends go into, one higher than the other. I tried the lower holes and there was no bow tension against the roof, but the higher ones are pretty tight. Does this even matter? Of course we then noticed a small tear near one of the seams (I believe it was there from the start) so I'm hoping it doesn't get worse. I might try to call Macs and see if there's anything they can do.
We also have a steamer so I was thinking about steaming the headliner during installation to help loosen it up, figuring it will tighten up at the end.
Essentially there are several questions in this exhausting description, which all boils down to, where did I go wrong and are there any tips/info that you guys can offer me?
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