Headliner act

A little protection from the Florida sun

A funny thing happened on the way to restoring on Old Yeller:
I was poking around the shop a few weeks ago looking for the next thing to clean up or restore and pack away when I realized, Hey! I'm putting this thing back together!
After I got the steering column installed, I dug out the heater components and the wiper controls. Both went in under the dash with ease, so I turned my attention to the roof of the car. I had purchased a roll of reflective insulation at the Spring Turkey Run, so I got out the spray glue and in less than an hour I had a really well-insulated roof. Hopefully it'll deflect some of the Florida sun in the future.
I then realized that before the headliner went in, I would need to run the wiring for the dome light. Searching through the shop, I found the unopened box of a complete wiring kit I had purchased from Danchuk back in '99. The dome light wiring is part of the tail light wiring harness, so that had to be installed before moving forward. Everything lined up perfectly,  and all the colors and connectors were just like the original.
Not being able to find anything else to tinker with, I took a deep breath and unboxed the headliner.

Homemade tack strips!

Now, I've done one headliner in the past with relatively good results, so I wasn't totally in the dark, but it's still a daunting task. Mostly because you only get one chance, more or less, to do it right. And wrong can really look bad!
I was surprised to find that the headliner was fabric, not perforated vinyl, just like the original. Another plus for the folks at Happy Days Interiors!
With my son Daniel home for the weekend, we pulled out the old headliner bows (numbered and taped together 19 years ago) and strung up the new headliner. Everything clipped into place as it should. Pretty exciting to see the inside of the roof finally disappearing.
Next it was time to tack down the edges. The original headliner was secured to cardboard tack strips using upholstery nails--I can't imagine how tedious that must've been on the assembly line! After 60+ years, my tack strips were nothing more than crumbling chunks, so I looked online for a tack strip set. What I found was expensive rolls of strips that often didn't seem to fit right, based on comments I read. Giving it a little thought, I decided I could make what I needed out of a $3 piece of upholstery cardboard. The result worked perfectly!

Halfway done. So far so good

It took a week of careful stapling and stretching in between work responsibilities, but the end result is quite pleasing. There are a few wrinkles, but I suspect that was the case with the original as well, so I'm not concerned about it.
I had a little trouble with the dome light (another purchase from '99 that I finally unwrapped) mainly because I had nothing to refer to as to how it was installed originally. I first thought the base plate mounted behind the headliner, and struggled with that for a while before I figured out that it had to mount on the outside of the liner, with the metal clips that secure it poking through the material. Fortunately, I didn't bugger up the liner with my struggles. The sun visors were next, and again it was a nice surprise to pull them out and see
how well they resembled the originals.
The next big step was the rear and front glass. Now, I've carried this glass to at least five different locations over 30 years, each time carefully stashing them away for safekeeping. I wasn't sure if they were even usable, since I had a recollection that the side glass was foggy and delaminating.

Not too bad for an amateur

After washing off the rear window, though, I found it to be in almost perfect condition. I wrapped the edge in the new gasket (again from '99) and, using the rope method of installation, put it in by myself with no difficulty. That allowed me to install the package tray and the trim around the rear window. Holy cow, things were looking good!
I knew I couldn't manage the front windshield by myself, so Daniel again came to my rescue last weekend on a visit home. Getting the gasket around the glass proved to be surprisingly difficult, but with with four hands and a lot of sweat we got it on. The front gasket holds the top half of the stainless in, so we had to remember to snap that in place as well before we dropped the glass in.

New pillar panels with the extra headliner fabric

With everything in place, we carefully carried the precious assembly to the car and placed it in position. From the inside, I pulled the rope out of the rubber channel while Daniel adjusted the fit from the outside. We could see it was falling nicely into place!
After all the rope was removed, and the gasket securely clamped onto the window frame of the car, we realized that the stainless trim was off center. There was no way to shift it to get the two ends to line up with their respective attachment points, so--out came the glass for round two. It was quite a task to get the gasket out intact, but we did it, and repositioned everything for round two.

Dang it!

With experience and more confident under our belt, the second attempt seemed to go quicker. Again, adjustments were made to get the sides of the windshield to fall into place. The driver's side set really well, but the passenger side was not--it needed a bit more persuasion. I could see it inching closer into place with each nudge Daniel made. Finally, I felt it was close enough, but decided to give the lower corner one more smack with the heel of my hand to close the deal.
The picture tells the rest of the story.