Suede Headliner

[Ukrman]

I'm thinking to redo my headliner and the pillars in black ultrasuede. I did a little research and found some mixed opinions about it. Everyone loves the look of it, but some people say that its really hard to work with, and that adhesives don't hold it up. But then there are people that claim that everything works great. Has anyone on this board done it, suede or alcantara interior? I definitely wanna do, so maybe be the first (I doubt it). Anyways, I found a couple types of different adhesives that people use to redo headliners, and was wondering in anyone know what would work best. The adhesive has to be able to withstand good amount of heat since it gets pretty hot in the mx3 in the summer (at least now we'll have some slim visors so we can leave the windows cracked )

So, heres a couple adhesives that I found that people use for headliners, anyone use any of them, and any experience, good or bad?

3M Hi-Tack 76 Spray Adhesive
3M Super 77 Spray Adhesive
3M Hi-Strength 90 Spray Adhesive
Loctite Headliner Adhesive 37312
Max Multi-Purpose spray adhesive
Perforamnce High Temp Trim Spray Adhesive

Also, after I remove my old headliner, I'm not sure if I should replace the foam, or just glue the suede straight to the cardboard. Let me know what you guys think.

[Mooneggs]

meh I'm no expert on interiors and I have no real experience other than I tried a synthetic leather material for a headliner but it ended up being too heavy and it sagged on the first really hot day in the summer

After that i bought some a much lighter material with a foam backing that worked much better and has stuck for more than 6 months now even through some hot days... I applied it directly on top of the old headliner material

[eyezpinned]

i recently recovered my headliner and painted my trim. one thing i can tell you is that recovering the trim will be tough. when i did my headliner i ran into the most trouble where it would curve (not to mention i had to cut out a hole for an aftermarket sunroof NIGHTMARE). I tried 2 different fabrics the first being pretty thin and anytime the flat surface would curve id have a whole mess of wrinkles to deal with. remember too that to do it right you have to lather it with adhesive so you only have about 20 secs before it gets really hard to correct. the heavier fabric worked better as it wasnt prone to wrinkle because of its thickness. i also glued mine directly to the factory surface. if you peel off the foam your left with nothing more than a thin piece of cardboard that loses its rigidity really easy. if you do take off the foam reinforce the entire thing with fiberglass cloth (might be a good idea anyway makes the headliner really strong). there might be areas of the trim that take the fabric well, but overall i think the contures will make it more trouble than it's worth. i used krylon plastic paint... it was a breeze and it came out nice.

[npspears]

thanks eyezpinned, that was a good explanation.

[Ukrman]

thanks for the info guys

BTW eyezpinned, do you have any pics of how it came out?

I'll try it anyways, always wanted to do, so we'll see what happens

[eyezpinned]

i'll snap a few pics next time im outside w/ the camera

[projectzemx3]

did you take the headliner right out? or try and do it while it was still in the car?

[Ukrman]

Definatelly gotta take it out if you wanna do a quality job. You need to take off old stuff down to the board so that when you glue new stuff it stays on there nice. I heard some people glue it to the old headliner, but I'm not sure how long that would last.

I'm pretty much ready to do mine, the only thing I need is to figure out how to do the sunvisors. I don't have a sawing machine so not sure how to cover them up. Any ideas or any places that cad do it?