Around Christmas Time, when I mentioned to any of my VW friends that I was planning on installing my own headliner they all called me nuts. "No really, you're going to pay someone to do that right?" was the typical response. Rarely do I think about paying someone to work on my car...but wow, would I every consider it now! Headliner isn't impossible, but it is
damned difficult! I'm still not even sure I'm going to keep it. There is one spot on the B-Pillar that really annoys me, and now that I've done more I'm not sure I'll be happy with it. On the one hand, it's turning out way better then my '69 headliner ever was...and lets be honest, at the end of the day I'm taking this car racing. BUT, and this is a big but, I'm not convinced the level of craftsmanship on this part matches the rest of the car. From day one I wanted a car that was finished to "magazine standards...and so far, the headliner isn't doing it for me. Gotta sleep on it, and I'm going to finish the job to the end. I mean, I might as well assemble the car before I decide it's all gotta come out to be redone. Waves I see right now may settle out, or end up hidden by some piece of equipment I haven't installed yet.
I did decide this afternoon that installing the headliner without any padding was going to be a waste of time. The C-Pillars would be so challenging to have look "right" I just couldn't wrap my head around it. Living in small town BC doesn't leave much in terms of shopping options at 6pm, so I came up with the best thing I could find. It's polyester, so it won't rot, and the thickness is about right. Having no record of what the padding shapes looked like, I used a combination of google and common sense to come up with something reasonable.
First up is the 'rear window' section. Wow was that a challenge! It's a simple piece of vinyl for crying out loud, why did it almost beat me!?! :P So, overall it's not _bad_, and I'm not really sure how I would have pulled out the slight wrinkles around the corner...so I can live with those. But the top bar has two waves in it, due to the padding underneath. The bottom ends aren't even (due to the padding not being exactly the same)...and I discovered what happens if you hit the vinyl with too much heat on the lower right. Hmph. For the moment I haven't decided on what I'm doing with the firewall (Dynamat, carpet, bare?) so I'm not yet sure what I'll do to fix any of the issues (if anything). I was mildly discouraged at this point, but figuring that I'm in this far, I pressed on.
With the rear quarter panel sections I discovered a new and interesting problem. Nowhere in my head did I think about the fact that I've moved the firewall in by 3". This headliner piece, which already seemed complex enough to mount, was going to need to be modified to accommodate. I went slow, reeeeaaallly slow. But in the end, I'm actually pretty stoked with how good its looking. There are some big waves/wrinkles in the far right that would normally be hidden by the rear seat back. Not quite sure what I'm going to do, but the "under window" piece is technically long enough to go over this part.
With that completed I decided I really didn't want to be up another hour to do the passenger side. One one hand I'm starting to feel comfortable with the job, but on the other hand when I'm tired is likely when I'm going to screw up really badly.
Before heading to write this, though, I decided to install some Dynamat on the roof. Initially I wasn't going to, mostly due to adding yet more weight, but then I thought about it and realized I would have to do a whole second headliner if I ever changed my mind! With that, I tossed in three strips of Dynamat. When doing a panel, you actually don't have to cover the whole thing (despite what Dynamat might tell you), but you do need to do enough to make sure you stop the panel from resonating. I think the rule is 25% coverage in the center of the panel, but I couldn't be bothered to measure or cut the stuff. Just spend, heat and apply :P Just how effective is it?
http://www.youtube.com/embed/YH0bwv1henY
I'm knocking on the panel with the same force.
-Dave