My Poor Man's Headliner

[grey beard]

Now folks, wouldn't it just be grand if we could all recieve the same sort of Christmas present our good friend, Merle Coggins, gave to himself this past holiday season. Way to go, Merle! But, well, eleven hundred skins looks a tad on the rich side from the viewpoint of this senior citizen what's livin' on a very fixed income.

Many of us on this forum have been searching for better headliner material. Those who have the Roberts costly-but-lousy replacements report poor fit and short life expectancy from the moisture-prone cardboard. For $300, not too many of us need a whole lot of that.

Having said all that there palaver, here's what happened to me last week. Whilst strollin' thru my favorite New Jersey junk yard, I suddenly realized that I was literally surrounded by upholstery material - most of which would eventually go into the crusher. With that thought foremost, I began looking at truck and van headliners. Spied a mid-90's Chebby crew cab and looked inside. What to my wonderin' eyes should appear but a large expanse of upholstery, marred only by a dome lamp in the middle.

Promptly asked for and was GIVEN said piece of material. Prolly' shoulda' tried to get it cheaper, what? This sort of stuff is rarely ever sold in any junk yard, and they're likely glad to get rid of it. Material appears to be fiberglass or heavy board of some sort of unidentifiable material that seems to hold up well, with the front covered in foam-backed fabric in a beige color. Two screws inside the dome lamp and two more on the right-side grab handle later, and I had the whole thing in my hands - just pulled it out of its place where they are jammed in at the assembly plant.

Now it's home in my shop. The pics you see are Pilothouse headliner patterns, courtesy of friend, Allan Parkhursr, lying on top of this junkyard material. As you can see, the supercab Chebbie stuff is big enough to provide a one-piece headliner that will fit inside my Pilothouse, with enough material left over for the two long thin pieces that go above each door.

This Chevvy headliner had some major molding sculptured or pressed into it around the sun visors, but as luck would have it, the flatter portions are large enough to provide sufficient yardage for what we need. Downside of this plan is that the dome lamp is further forward than the stock Pilothouse position, but I cabbaged the Chebby dome lamp and grab handle I had to remove to get the thing out, and can use the dome lamp in its original hole. Now if I can just find a 6-volt bulb to fit that newer dome lamp . . . . . .

Ir is my devout hope that my next post on this forum will show the finished installation, complete and proper in every way. If you have cared enough to look inside a bare Pilothouse cab roof, there are only two brackets made for securing the headliner material - about over the heads of driver and passanger. There will be a grommeted screw in each of these spots when I'm done. All the front and back edges are hidden by other panels, so what I cut will be hidden on all four sides, except for the two smaller panels above each door. Those will need very careful cutting as their edges will show. Mebby I can find some plastic binding for around those edges . . . . . .

Sholda' got the two sun visors that match this material, but they were alerady gone. All of which makess me wonder what a Chevy crew cab headliner would look like stretched out on my garage floor . . .

Worst case scenario is that I wasted a few hours' time havin' fun . . . . . .

[Young Ed]

Dave what does the backside look like?

[pflaming]

I am impressed with the originality of Pilot-house members. Keep us informed. If one picked out two headliners would there be enough matierial to do the entire cab? What are you going to do with the color?

[grey beard]

The color is a light beigie/grey, sorta neutral, that matches my junkyard Ford F150 seat upolstery. Doojathink this truck may pull to the right every time I pass a salvage yard?

Since I submitted the first pics, I've cut the headliner out and begun to fit it. The material looks like cardboard on the back, Ed. Before I cut it, all upholstery fabric was wrapped around all the edges and glued - probably in some mass-produced system or other. After I cut the pattern out, the edges seem to be layer in some fashion. I'm betting it will be necessary to take the two smaller pieces to an upholsterer and have them bound, in order to keep them looking neat. It is very hard to get any sort of finished edge look once this stuff is cut. I may need to go back for a second headliner to get enough material to do around the back windows.

Next pics will show how it looks installed - I hope.

[MBF]

GB-please keep us posted on your progress. I was thinking of trying the same thing with a headliner from a Chev wagon and reupholstering it myself with the same material I used for the door and rear panels. We restored an old firetruck a few years ago, and one of the things that the guy redoing the seat did was to make many shallow parallel score marks on a sheet of plywood(using a circular saw) to allow the framework to bend around the corners of the seat. After he got the final shaping done-he epoxied it to give it stregnth and to hold its shape. I just may go scavenging this weekend. mike

[Young Ed]

I'll second that. I may have to go junkyarding to see what I can find for my 46. I doubt I'll find brown to match the rest of my interior though.

[Reg Evans]

Check out passenger vans in the junk yards. Some of them have a large uninterrupted expanse of headliner.

[greg g]

Good tip thanks. I was chatting with a fellow with a 55 Dodge pickup at a cruise in last year. I asked him what he used to do up his headliner and other interior panels, as it looked pretty sharp. He said he was wlaking through Home Depot, Lowes, substitute local home improvement store here, and noted that the paletts of sheet goods, Paneling, osb board, etc. was seperated it several layers. Between the layers was this thin board the emplyees were throwing away. He asked for a sheet, they cut it half for him for easier transport. Its an impregnated paper fibre board stuff, he said it bends easily when wet, dries to the bent shape, and takes paint easily. He said he would make a template, transfer it to the board, cut it with a jig saw, if it needed to be bent, he had a 4 inch diameter piece of PVC pipe, on a couple of sawhorses, wet it bend it and let it dry. then trim it to fit and install. He spray glued some foam to the back and then put it over the foil insulation previously installed.

another free posibility.