Watched a video by Richpin where he manhandled the **** out of the trim holding up the headliner in a third series S car.

Using a trim removal tool, Phillips screwdriver, t50 bit, straight pick, 80°F, 80% humidity, I did more or less the same damn thing in certain spots removed extra things holding it in that didn't exist anymore in gen 3, flexed the hell out of it to get it out from behind stuff, and




.

I can now recover that after I scrape all the foam off from the previous headliner with I'm not sure what. I don't know what to use as adhesive, because I tried to use spray 3M headliner adhesive to reattach the fabric to the doors, and that only lasted 3 months, partly summer, before it started coming off. Granted that was probably not the right adhesive for fabric to whatever the hell I was gluing it to on the door. This is actually foam fabric to some type of formed compressed fiber board. I'll do some research..

I'm going to have to take the door panels to an automotive upholstery place to get the glue residue out of the fabric itself so that they can glue that to an intermediate piece which then gets glued to the inside of the door panel. I'm hoping they can use the original fabric because there is no way in hell I will find both inner door panels with better fabric from the same dead car that can be switched out.

My garage floor has been epoxied and coated with polyospartic.



Cost too much but I have committed to maintaining the Audi, the Escape, and of course my 95 SC2, which needs new valve guide seals and eventually a clutch. My neck is messed up and I cannot lay on the floor anymore and crane my neck.

I have decided which scissors lift I would like to purchase, but I am finding conflicting information online about the ground clearance of a stock 2016 A3 premium and I don't know where the hell they're measuring from. Probably not the front bumper. My wife is being weird about straddling it while parking with the Escape. That is the obvious solution. Shallow ramps with a gradual rise or the other answer but I don't want to have to get out of the car to put them in place and even if I did then I couldn't close the garage door.

Next comes the intake manifold gasket replacement, the first thing I will do using the lift. The lower studs cannot be accessed from above. I can't even see what they look like and somehow there are multiple designs for 95. I ordered what I thought with the correct parts and have them came as nuts not studs. The top studs are different than the bottom studs. What the ****.

So I have to get it up in the air or crawl the **** under it one last time to make sure I order the right thing this time.

Just did a brake fluid flush on the Audi with a pressurized one man bleeder attached to the master cylinder. Quite easy. Can actually feel a difference in the pedal after only two years and less than 24,000 mi. Really surprised me as it had already been done once since I've owned the car.

Totally off topic.

Summary.: Finally got up the nerve to deal with 27-year-old trim holding up the headliner. It's out, I'm happy, and I have all of you to thank for it. It took this long for me to build up the confidence which is sad but true. And it took 10 minutes and was totally not a big deal in the end, just as Rube said 10 years ago.

I took it for a drive after putting the trim in the garage. It still as much fun as it's always been. It just is.

 

The garage floor looks great, derf. As for that headliner, I don't know what to tell you to use as an adhesive. I scraped mine with a plastic putty scraper. I'm not sure, but THINK I used about 3 cans of 3M adhesive to install the fabric I used. I don't really remember exactly what I used, but THINK is was a berber carpet piece. I have no idea how long it lasted because I sold it about 2 months later because the crappy TAAT transmission was proving to be a royal pain in the ****. Good job on getting it out without breaking it because I KNOW it took some fanagaling.

 

When doing something similar to the falling headliner in our van I used a scotch-brite wheel in my drill to buff all that crap off.
It was tedious and messy but got the job done fairly well.

 

Many thanks for the words of wisdom, sir!

 

I had 2 old battlewagons a 1979 crown Vic and a 1999 Colony Park! Sold the 79 when it had 279,000, and found the colony park. It was super clean but a drunk hit me in my own driveway, pushed me into a telephone pols at bottom of driveway and blew out the side windows!! Anywho I did the headliner in the 79 while the kids were young, I covered the ceiling with some kids wallpaper that had Disney characters on it! The painter who bought it laughed when he looked up and saw the disney characters!! Go BOLDLY!!

 

How did you end up restoring the headliner?

Did you have to scrape the old foam off of it? I'm curious because I might try removing mine and re-adhering the fabric to the foam. The foam seems fine on mine but the fabric is starting to come loose from the foam.

Why would you want to scrape the foam off?

 

Trying to scrape 27-year-old petrified foam off of an essentially multi-layer paper board backing board, if the car has lived out in the sun for half its life is a freaking nightmare. The glue on mine either came off with the fabric or was literally melted into the top surface of the board.

Attempts to scrape it or highly unsuccessful. As mentioned above, whatever was left behind on the board was essentially bonded to the board. I tried several scraping physical stripping methods, But as I took the foam off the backing board, the surface of the backing board, something like multi-layer paper, easily came off with the foam residue.

Since you want the final appearance to be smooth, you cannot make a bunch of craters in the backing board as they will show when you glue the new foam backed fabric to the board.

My ultimate solution:

Quite randomly, I perform a web search for a 95 SC2 headliner. Been doing it for years. Nothing.

2 popped up that day. Must have been warehouse cleaning day, as new old stock qty 1 appeared at one of the parts houses.

I think it cost me $115 plus a 60 shipping which I spent as quickly as possible.

The parts house was sufficiently shocked that anyone would want this old relic that they actually called me on the phone to verify that was the part that I wanted. They actually took a picture of it and emailed it as well to double double check. I said yes, it's still in my basement in a box. I finally figured out what to use as adhesive for the fabric inserts on the door panels which I have been waiting to do first before the headliner.

I'll post pictures here when complete.

There are quite a few YouTube videos and how to threads on different Saturn forums for recovering the backer board with headliner material.

 

It sounds like the foam on yours is in bad shape. I guess leaving it on and simply re-adhering the fabroc is not an option. Pretty nice you found the exact part you were looking for.

A lot of the parts for Saturns are abundant and cheap. Then there are some that are completely discontinued and only available privately or through salvage yards. You got lucky my friend.

 

Hell yes I did.
I've been searching for that part on Google randomly for over a decade. Nothing ever came up before that day. Right place right time.

The only thing I don't know is if the glue is going to last once I put it on the car. It was in a sealed box with a Saturn logo sticker and part number, but it could have been stored in a warehouse that got up to 120° every summer. I of course opened it and checked it out for damage and everything seemed to be pretty cool. I plan to finish a restoring this to be a show car that nobody wants at a show. But it will be there because I feel like it.

It'll be a survivor car until I get it painted.
I finally replaced the 18-year-old tires on it last week. They only had about 30,000 miles on them. What's a little dry rot between friends?

The Firehawk FTA that I came with was discontinued long ago, then came back, and is now gone again. I suppose I will have to get a set and put them on another set of 95 wheels. My fear in buying restored wheels is that they look pretty but are either bent or not true and will vibrate on the highway. The originals do not until you get up to about 95, when most of the car starts to vibrate and walk.

 

This thread brings back memories.... I did the headliner in my SC around 10 years ago. Mine has a sunroof, so it was a little more involved (more delicate). But i t was fun!
And still looking good.