New interior!

[newbird59]

i am doing about the same thing with my 1960 Bird. i bought a carpet kit from Mac's in Lockport, ny. very nice and prices right. I will post pictures when I am done. I had a heart triple by-pass in December, so I have to go easy at it.Thanks,Henry

I agree Henry, Take your time! I've been working little by little to get this interior finished the right way. Take some photos of your process if you can. I could always learn from people doing things differently.

[newbird59]

So I have a bit of a problem with my headliner. I installed everything correctly (as far as I know) so far. But I'm having trouble with the headliner bars not staying upright..the ones closer to the back of the car are ok but it's the one closest to the front isn't staying up. Is it too tight? Or do you guys have a trick? It looks like its sagging. Here are some photos

[simplyconnected]

All the bows I have installed follow the roof like an arch. They should be snug and they hold up the roof insulation. Headliner failure (hanging down) usually happens after many years, and caused when the loops rot away from the bows.

Your bows should also hold up the insulation. Make sure you have the correct bows in the right locations. This is important. For years, Ford color-coded the ends of the bows to identify where it belongs.

If you have a good Trim Shop in your neighborhood, pay them a visit and talk with the guys that are experienced with headliner installations. Hope this helps. - Dave

[Guest]

Hope this can help out
The headliner isn't that hard to do just fiddly take you time and you'll be fine

Richard

[newbird59]

Dave and Richard. That really did help! The bows were in the wrong places! That's interesting that this would make a difference. I was afraid that someone painted over them or something.

I am stapling it in right now and, so far, it's going really well! I have a few slight wrinkles but ill steam after to get rid of them. The manual says to steam the headliner once all set up? Is there something different I should do?

Thank a TON!

-David

[DKheld]

When I replaced mine it had small aluminum caps on the ends of the bows. The caps fit into those holes you have shown and kept the bows from going in too far.

Not sure where you would find the caps (they actually looked like tiny little metal top hats). May be too late now - could be that it will work just as well without them.

I tried an electric stapler - the biggest baddest one I could find. Didn't work - kept pulling loose. Finally borrowed an air stapler from an upholstery shop and didn't have a bit of trouble. Only other advice I could give is cut the dome light hole about 1/2 as big as you think it should be - almost cut mine too big.

Good luck,
Eric

[newbird59]

Eric,


I was wondering what was going on there...I read something about there being caps to the bows but I never looked too much into it. I used a few "pins that I found laying around the house to prevent the bow from moving. Now it fits solid and doesnt move at all. The othe bows were just fine.

I finished the headliner now and I think it looks great. I used a normal staple gun that I bought at Home Depot and It worked just fine. I just made sure to use shallow staples ( I think 1/4 inch).

Does anyone know where to find replacement caps for the headliner bows?

What I am going to do is take it back apart and show how I did it. Even though it's finished I want to post the process for those who want to intall one. I haven't found a good intall guide on this site so I will try to do my best to do a step by step guide.


Thanks!!

-David

[newbird59]

New Interior!

I finally installed the seats this past weekend! They aren't perfectly placed and fitted but they are in for testing purposes. The center console needs to be finished and the rear seats need to be modified a tiny bit. Also, I got the door panels back from the upholstery shop!

The door panels are 100% custom made by me. If you guys recall, I had some original panels that I tried very hard to restore...they were pretty bad and I just went with an ABS plastic instead. They are flat but cut out for the door spears. After testing fitting them for about 14 days, they are perfectly made to fit!

Here are a few photos

[DKheld]

Super job - can't wait to see the whole package when it's finished.

Eric

[YellowRose]

New interior!

David, the interior looks great! Really nice looking. I see that several of your pix are larger than 800x600. Please downsize them to that size and replace those that are to large with ones set to 800x600. You should be able to bring up your pix in photobucket and set them to 800x600. Thank you.

[Guest]

Very nice ...

If you don't mind my asking, where did you source the abs material? Thanks, Mike

[Dakota Boy]

yes, that looks really nice

[newbird59]

Thanks guys,

I sourced the ABS from TAP Plastics out in Santa Rosa California, Mike.

They have EVERYTHING! It's a little nuts. If I had a perfect OEM panel from a 1960 thunderbird, I could have had them form it to exactly that shape. I didn't have one so I thought of a new design. I bought two sheets of black ABS plastic for about $75-80. Pricing was a little steep but it's going to last a long long time now. Before going with ABS, I took the original panel and fiberglass re-enforced it so i would prevent the panel from breaking and warping any more. ended up not working out due to it fitting incorrectly.

[newbird59]

It's good to be back

I'm getting some images together about restoring the headliner and interior trim. What I have been working on for the last few weeks is restoring the headliner and such from my 1960 bird.

When I got the car, the headliner was installed and in great shape. It had obviously been replaced with a new one. Though it was replaced, I was not fitting right..I took it off and noticed the bows were in the wrong place. So I tried to correct it and staple the headliner back with the corrected bows in place but it wasn't fitting like I wanted to. I guess it was cut by the previous owner too short in a few places. I bought a new one from Thunderbird Headquarters and started over. The problem I had when completely removing the headliner from the car was that the headliner tack strip was chipping away and missing in a few places. This made it very difficult to attach the headliner to that strip. I thought about it for about 3-4 days and came up with an idea that would both save me money and also get exactly the right depth for the staples and durability.

Old Serpentine Belts that were 3 ribs wide. These fit perfectly into the tack strip channel width wise and almost perfectly flush.


In these 2 photos, I show the tack strip and how its pretty much falling apart. I couldn't get the headliner to stay firmly into place.





This is a photo of the old staples vs. the new ones that I used. They worked perfectly and I used a normal hand staple gun from The Home Depot. They were 1/4 inch deep.


I used a chisel bit tool and small hammer to chisel the material off of the inside of the channel. this gave me a good/flat surface to glue the new material.



Here is a photo of the front channel removed from the front passanger side of the car. There are two in the front (one driver side and one passanger side separated by the center rearview mirror) that are held in by two screws each side. The channel that run along the side/rear windows are not removable.


I glued the belt into the channel with Gorrila Glue. I used this particular glue because it expands. It will fill up the grooves on the back side of the belt and make it hold really well. This particular glue needs one of the surfaces to be a little damp. I used a rag to dampen the channel and then applied the glue. I used electrical tape to wrap the channel so that the belt would stick firmly. I later removed it as it was only used for this purpose.

[YellowRose]

New interior!

Hi David,

Thanks for posting the pix. Please go into Photobucket and downsize those large pix to 800x600. They are over the limit for this Forum. Thank you.