Anyone have experience to share on how to remove targa top headliner without damaging?
I want to re-blue the cloth and eliminate the sag. Nothing found with a search of the forum.
Thanks for any info

 

You can't remove it. Once it sags, it's history. You have to replace it. PM'd

 

Not true. We are 4 years now after a reglue. We did it in July of 2016 after we got the car. Same with my buddy's 90 that he gave to his daughter. Our garage is not climate controlled so the car goes through all 4 seasons. No evidence of it starting to sag again.

Here are 2 youtube videos on how to repair. The 1st is what we did

 

Carefully removed and reglued mine last winter. Looks fine. Its been exposed to all manner of temperature extremes and is still stuck. A few hints:

If you are careful with the insulation backing pad you can remove it with the headliner cloth. I used a few different plastic putty knives for this.

I quite literally put my headliner through a wash machine after separating it from the pad, let it dry in the sun and reglued it to the pad. Use 3M spray adhesive on the PAD, not the cloth. Let it dry so none of it will bleed into the cloth when you reapply it to the pad.

Set your roof upside down in the sun and on something soft of course. Have some towels and heavy books handy.

​​​​​Clean the underside of the roof well. Pull any loose material off the side of the pad that will glue to the roof. Apply spray adhesive to both sides.

​​​​​Place the headliner and pad on the upturned roof. Smooth out any wrinkles as you glue it down. Take the towels and cover the headliner, then place the books on top of the towels. Let this "bake" in the sun for as long as you can.

As I mentioned, no saggy failures, hot and cold cycle tested, looks great, cost me maybe 5 bucks for two cheap plastic putty knives because I already had the spray glue.

​​​​​Or, you could always just have it done by a professional, can't imagine it would be more than 2-300 bucks.

 

I’ve used this with good luck in the past.

 

We industrial velcro-ed the roof panel to the top. That way if we ever have to redo the cloth again, it will be relatively easy to get out.

 

Unless you are concerned with keeping things "original", I have never seen a benefit to keeping the headliner.
Mine was sagging so I completely removed it and painted the underside of the targa top flat black.
It looks great and will never sag again.

 

FYI... 3M makes a couple interior adhesives; one for such as headliners and one more "general purpose" ( I suppose).

I don't recall where, but on a 3M site it suggests applying a second coat of the adhesive and pressing the pieces together while the glue is still on the wet side.

I can report that doing so (two coats) on the headliner DOES work, where using only one resulted in my liner coming down again in a couple years. The new liner is much heavier material including some artwork stitching (ZR-1...what else???) which hasn't come down now for many years.

Hope this helps!

P.

 

I don't get why anyone would want to try to save a 36 yr old (in some cases) piece of cloth. I've seen your video and I would expect that it probably doesn't look as good as a new one. Your headliner separated from the foam. They all do with age. With no foam, you'll see every slight imperfection on the backerboard. Often when you try to do what you did, the glue will seep through and be very visible.

 

Thanks for the feed back. I hope to tackle this in a couple of weeks. Also found another video in the c4 stickies on this forum.
My 1994 is licensed and insured as a “collector” kept stock for “pleasure use” driving and stored overwinter.
Cheers

 

on my 85 If you drive it in the summer, insulate the top.

I did and used 3m adhesive, I believe the green can. Has lasted 5 years with no issue.

Also a lot cooler in the car in the summer.

 

Anything done poorly will look poorly. Mine looks factory fresh. And...cost 5 bucks. Nuff said.

 

who said anything about doing something poorly? I didn't hear/read anyone in here talk about doing it poorly. ours looks factory fresh also. It had simply come unglued. not unraveled, tore, just unglued.

seems like you doubt that the forum members here are competent about working on their cars ?

 

?? Dunno where that came from there, doc,I was in fact supporting less expensive means like the ones you posted and was simply refuting that more cost, time, and/or material was a requirement for repair. Any method described above could be done successfully and well, or poorly executed. The only differences were cost, time and materials used, and yes, the skill in applying all of the above.

And please don't confuse this post as an apology. This a discussion forum. If we all agreed on everything, there would be nothing to discuss and no need for a forum.


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this sure sounded like a dig at people repairing their's without buying a new one

 

How? Read the posts...ALL of them. That is the point of a discussion, right? Mine was a 5 dollar repair using my existing headliner, some spray glue and two plastic putty knives!!! I agree with you, figure that out, and let it go!

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Then it is my turn to apologize, I missed that part. I don't mind apologizing when I am wrong. When I saw the "nuff said", around here, when folks say that, it is an attack.

So sorry.