One of my biggest pet peeves about my 84 was the original headliner that's fabric tore like tissue paper and never failed to douse you with a nice mist of 40 year old dissolved foam dust when you close the door.

Unfortunately for me, as much as I love the Fiero Stores products, I am not made of Fiero store money, and couldn't justify a 300 dollar headliner. So I went ahead and made one from this new fabric Joanne Fabrics started carrying. (Its new in my area atleast)

Its called Padded Neoprene Headliner. Total cost for a 6 by 6 sections was $19.73 after the coupon that's available on there website.

I did the headliner dropdown procedure, as described here : https://www.mtritter.org/fi...help/headliner.html.

Lightly sanded the board to remove the old glue. Promptly broke it because I am a idiot and never should have tried to use a electric sander on a board with the structural integrity of a marshmallow.

I filled the gaps with industrial hot glue and then JBweld cereal box carboard over the cracks on the roof side of the headliner board, I also strengthened other potential weakspots in the same manner.

I applied the neoprene material with Elmer Spray Adhesive and allowed it to dry for 2 hours. I then cut out the sunroof leaving atleast 1 inch of material from the window edges as well as the dome light cutout. I have not made the cuts for the visors yet as I am not sure I was to reinstall the stock visors.

This is what I was left with, is it perfect, absolutely not. There are some spots where my repair shows through. But is it a massive improvements over the mess that was there before. Id say so.




Local Man Uses Headliner Material to Replace Headliner isnt exactly breaking news, but I just wanted to show that if this goober could do it, anyone else can

[This message has been edited by Dukesterpro (edited 10-24-2022).]

Better than what it was I am sure of it! Looks good to me, good job. I did mine a few years ago and over time it has started to not look as good again. I believe the next round I am simply going to go with the Fiero Store abs headliner. This would completely replace the carboard stuff.

I have Archie's Fiberglass headliner, but haven't got to the upholstery part of that yet. Still working on some wiring inside the Fiero. But as soon as I put everything back together, this is what I want to do.

I would rather go the padded neoprene route than the thin suede stuff.

I used the material from Joann Fabrics also. Actually, I wound up doing the entire job twice.... My original backing board was in bad shape and I tried to repair it using the fiberglass fabric and resin from Autozone. In my naivete, I assumed the foam-backed fabric would hide all manner of imperfections. I was wrong! Like you found also, they tend to show up anyway. I also wasn't satisfied by the way I had bunched the fabric into the headwells (mine is a hardtop). There's definitely a learning curve to doing these! So I patiently watched the junkyards for an entire year and eventually found another, better backing board and used it instead, preparing it more carefully than I did the first time and stretching the fabric slightly instead of bunching it into the headwell spaces. The finished result is gorgeous. Well worth the effort and the money savings over buying one pre-made.

quote Originally posted by css9450: I used the material from Joann Fabrics also. Actually, I wound up doing the entire job twice.... My original backing board was in bad shape and I tried to repair it using the fiberglass fabric and resin from Autozone. In my naivete, I assumed the foam-backed fabric would hide all manner of imperfections. I was wrong! Like you found also, they tend to show up anyway. I also wasn't satisfied by the way I had bunched the fabric into the headwells (mine is a hardtop). There's definitely a learning curve to doing these! So I patiently watched the junkyards for an entire year and eventually found another, better backing board and used it instead, preparing it more carefully than I did the first time and stretching the fabric slightly instead of bunching it into the headwell spaces. The finished result is gorgeous. Well worth the effort and the money savings over buying one pre-made.

Very nice work!

I was thinking those rank old headliner boards could be strengthened by brushing on some fiberglass resin, letting it harden then sanding it down. Something im going to experiment with in the future!

Did you end up using neoprene or the foam backed felt?

Thanks, yes, that's the felt fabric with the foam backing. Too bad they don't have more colors, but fortunately for me at least they had gray. I also did some door panel inserts in black for my Chevy Cobalt.... LOL They are softer than what was there originally!

At some point I need to replace my headliner.

the headliner in my van is kind of a vinyl covering. I'd like to replace the fabric with something similar, if I can find it.

Good info about the material!
Strangely enough, I passed a JoAnn's fabric store today, on my way through Newnan GA. It's probably the closest one to me, at this point.
I just did my headliner, last year, using the "conventional" headliner fabric. Had a lot of fun getting it to lay flat, in the depressions in the roof panel. Only wrinkled in one place, however.
Oh well... Fourth headliner I've ever done, and first one in a decade.

And yeah... the original backing board isn't called "potato chip board" for no good reason.

Nice job!