T-Bird Car Restoration Project Part 6 - Two in One! - Page 2

10 Hours So Far, And We're Just Getting Started...

Things went okay to this point, so we color-sanded and buffed the new white finish to remove "orange peel" and minor imperfections. It was much easier to do this right away so that the stainless trim, rear window and portholes could be installed and not harmed later by getting too close with the buffing compounds.

The top was flipped on its back (nestled on a soft blanket and foam pads to prevent scratching the paint) so that we could start installation of the headliner, but first we wanted to line the inner surface with insulation and sound deadening material. We bought some rolls of aluminum foil insulation from the local home center. It's two layers of thick foil bonded to a bubble-wrap inner core and has several important properties: 1) it's thin and flexible; 2) it adheres well to contact cement; 3) it is a great insulator; 4) it deadens sound; 5) it cuts with scissors and razors; and 6) it's cheap!

We simply placed sections of the material on the surface to be lined and cut it to fit with a razor blade. Once all the pieces were cut and test-fitted we sprayed them with contact cement and lined the top's inner surface in short order. Then it was time to install the tacking strip for the headliner.

The first piece of insulation is laid in for fitting.

With the liner in place we start drilling holes for the installation of the black tacking strip.

The dense, black rubber tacking strip had to be drilled and countersunk for each attaching screw. A hole for the screw also had to be drilled into the fiberglass inner structure, and this had to be done 70 times around the perimeter of the top's underside. It took a long time but we were rewarded with a strong mounting point for the headliner.

At last, the tacking strip is in place.

The Headliner, Finally

Installing headliners is nowhere near as hard as most people think it is. The only "secret" is to be patient and not afraid to stop, pull it out and start over. In the case of our hard top, of course, the task was simpler in two ways: first, the top area is relatively small; and second, we could work on it looking down rather than looking up.

To start, we unwrapped the new headliner and placed it out in the sun for a couple hours to straighten out all the fold creases. We then slid each of the four bows through its respective cloth channel on the reverse side. Once the bows were inserted we spread out the headliner to position it centered in the top.

Notice that we put a little masking tape on the end of the bow so it wouldn't tear the cloth channel.

We worked from front to back (no reason) inserting the bow end into their retaining holes in the top structure. As we got to the rear of the top we continued to spread out the headliner and double-check its fit all around. The last bow was fitted into its retainers and we could start stretching.

You have to bend the bow to get it into the slot.

The bow is now fixed where it should be.

With the bows in place we started pulling each end of the headliner from its centerline. As we stretched the fabric we held it in place with clamps and paper clips. After a few minutes we were rewarded with a well-stretched headliner, at least front-to-rear.

The headliner is beginning to look like it'll fit.

Stretching and pulling to remove the wrinkles just takes time and patience.

T-Bird Car Restoration Project Part 6 - Continued on Page 3