I’ll st art by making the base for the center section of the headliner. This is the only p art of the headliner that will not be made in place on the roof. It will be a separate panel made of Lauan plywood and will extend the full length of the roof. Once the side panels are completed it will be put into place and anchored to the roof using the same plastic retainers I used to attach the door and qu art er trim panels.

To make the panel visually appealing it will be twenty inches wide at the front and twenty six inches wide at the rear. That gives me a st art ing place so the next step is to make the side panels.

To make the side panels I use the same heavy cardboard I used previously to construct the templates for the door and qu art er panel trim panels. I use the largest sheets possible and glue each one into place over my wooden framework until I have a base for the foam to be added next. This base needs to consist of at least three layers of cardboard to give it the needed strength to hold the foam and vinyl coverings.

To make the curves at the back of the roof I cut the cardboard into smaller pieces and carefully sculpt the needed curves. I don’t use any staples here because once the sides have been covered and shaped the cardboard will need to sanded smooth using a dual action sander with 80-grit sand paper attached. Imperfections such as overlapped edges of the cardboard will telegraph through the foam and must be remove. The 80-grit will easily remove those edges.

A final note to the last pic is that I didn’t bother to extend the cardboard or the foam to the center of the roof panel as most of this area will be covered by the center section. I also used qu art er inch thick closed cell foam gluing it into place over the cardboard using Eastwood # 520001zp adhesive. To remove any wrinkles that form in the foam, especially in the corners, I pulled the foam at the base of the wrinkle until the foam smoothed out. Any wrinkles that didn’t pull out were sanded smooth using 80-grit sand paper.

Also notice in the last pic that I cut the foam along a very straight line where this p art of the headliner will meet the center section. This straight line is essential to the overall look of the headliner and was drawn using the center section base panel as the pattern.

Notice that the center piece is flipped over exposing the push in clips. I didn’t want to risk damaging the clips by pushing them through the plywood then pulling them back out in order to remove the panel. Also notice that I cut an opening for the dome light in the center section.

The next step is to cover the side panels with vinyl material. I st art by coating both the foam and the vinyl with adhesive (520001zp). The adhesive is allowed to dry to the touch before attempting installation. This is a very important step as allowing the adhesive to dry will let me lightly stick the vinyl to the foam and if needed lift the vinyl to reposition it without worry of tearing the foam. Only after the vinyl is in place and wrinkle free do I press it firmly to the foam. I repeat this exercise on the left side and the roof is ready for the center section.

Since I’ve already constructed the base of the center section out of Lauan plywood all that is left to do is cover it with a layer of eighth inch thick foam and cover that with the darker vinyl material. Why did I switch to the eighth inch thick foam and not use the qu art er inch thick foam? Using the thicker foam would make the edges of the center section stand proud of the side panels and create a shadowing effect. The thinner foam prevents that. How does the final product look? I think it looks pretty good.

Project provided by:

Larry Lyles, owner

LPL Body Works

Amarillo , TX 79109

www.LPLBodyWorks.com