Headliner Fabric Seperating From Backing

[mercuric]

Thanks for the additional information, y'all. And sweet writeup, Rob.

Now I just need to get my beater back on the road so I can do this and several other things that will leave the 850 in a state of disrepair for a little while. Definitely going to take this one slow, and assume several trips to the junkyard and/or dealer will be needed to replace broken pieces. Texas sun is brutal!

[obayha]

The junkyard is a good place to practice getting the liner out. Plus you can have an extra to have covered while you keep yours in.
Shane

[mercuric]

^^ that's a great idea!!

I guess I woke up looking for trouble today, so I finally started this project... The trim and associated bits all came down so easy and cleanly I didn't want to press my luck for one day, so I haven't tried to pull the board out yet. But the trim, including the light console, visors, etc, all came out smoothly and I had it all down and the bits in bags in about 90 min working carefully. Even the sunroof trim was quick and easy. Looks like there's only a few clips and some wiring to get the board down now. All the screws and bolts can be threaded back into their holes to prevent losing or mixing them up, also. Only thing that gave me grief was the passenger side sunvisor, the clip fractured coming out and I had to cut the power feed to the vanity mirror as I didn't see a good way to remove the wire. It connects to a power connector behind the glovebox in front of the blower fan, so you can disconnect that to avoid shorting voltage as you snip the wire if you didn't (or don't want to) disconnect the battery -- My glovebox was already out. A few minutes with the butane soldering iron will put that back together, not that I really care about the silly mirror light, but easy enough so why not.

If getting the board out goes as smoothly as all the trim stuff, I'm going to be really happy... I suspect I'll be cussing like a sailor for a little bit trying to coax it out

[E Showell]

I do not know why anyone would cut the sunroof visor wires to do a headliner resto. Makes no sense. The sun visor wire clips into a harness at the base of the windshield and is accessed behind the plastic trim piece running down the windshield pillar.

Also the headliner board is not "fiberglass." It is more like a heavy egg carton type cardboard and should be treated as though it is fragile. You can scrape off the old headliner fabric with a sharp scraper.

[Jazzop]

Does anyone know how many different headliner fabric colors were available on the 850? My car has the black/dark grey interior, but the headliner is more like a tan color, which doesn't fit aesthetically. Since my headliner is also falling apart, and since the local interior & upholstery shops have nothing close to the tan color, I'd like to go with a stock-looking dark color. I was also considering a faux suede, which looks similar to Alcantara. I got some swatches from the trim shop and it seems like it would look nice in the car. But I have an aversion to non-stock cosmetic mods (I try to keep all my cars in concours condition), so I'd strongly prefer an OEM fabric if possible.