Changing the headliner to black (rant)

[tominizer]

So I'm taking on the wonderful task of changing over the lite grey headliner to black. It had started to sag in the back. So what the heck. How hard can this be eh.


So this will include recovering the A/B/C pillars as well as a color change to the "oh-shite-handles", the various other lights and ceiling stuff and the sun visors. The dismantling to get it all out was fairly smooth with the help of various posts here and some videos. With all the parts out was time to strip the old dirty grey saggy material off.


But oh my GAWD !!

Whoever was the D-bag that thought this orange foam and glue from Satan himself was a good idea should be punctured by one thousand hornet stings and forced to listen to ABBA for the remainder of their pitiful life. What a mess. Don't be fooled by how easy that cloth headliner first pulls off. What comes after that's UNDER that cloth is hours of blissful galactic mess that just gets into everything and goes everywhere. It's an absolute SHYTFEST !!! And don't let this picture fool you into thinking "oh..... that doesn't look too bad at all...... what could he be talking about ......"

Anyways, I'm pushing forward. There has been a few stumbles along the way as I'm an older guy and my skills are not exactly what they use to be. Mind you I set my standards pretty high as well. Regardless, it will get done. The A/B/C pillars are wrapped and all done, center and front ceiling consoles have been wrapped, and visor light trims painted. I'm trying to see if I can source out some black sun visors from another car somehow as well as the "oh-shite-handles". So far no luck yet. And the BIG task of laying down the black microsuede on the main ceiling card has still be done. The only part of that job that has me nervous is the portion around the "oh-shite-handles" where I need to get the material to stretch into those pockets. That should be interesting. On that day, I think I will be cursing and sweating a lot.


Anyways, stay tuned !!

[agentrnge]

Lol. We are with you brother. Indeed that orange nonsense is pure evil. I had best luck with a putty knife to scrape the bulk of it off and a lot of latex gloves, a lot of paper towels, and cursing. When I did mine, I kept it stock-white-greyish to not need to worry about changing all you are doing. But in hindsight I somewhat wish I did go black.

The indentations for the oh-shite handles were not so rough to stretch into ( assuming the cloth you have stretches ok ) The thing I had the problems with was cutting/tucking around for the sunroof. I botched this up a bit. when I was cutting the "pie cuts" to fold the cloth around the corners and stretch it in, I did not leave enough material on the innermost corners. As it folded over it stretched out, and left a little bit of uncovered 2-5mm section with the edge of the cloth visible on 2 corners. It didnt/doesn't bother me enough to re-do the entire thing. So there it stays. Good luck!

[tominizer]

Yeah, this microsuede I have doesn't stretch all that great due to the backing. But I will figure it out. My issue at the sunroof was that the rounded corners on the card didn't fair perfectly when stripping the glue off. So I've put down an fine coating of body filler and going to smooth those rounded corners back to perfection.

I used two putty knives to get that orange foam and "guck" off. One to scrape one to clean the scraper !! I then went back over the entire card with a glue remover to try and clean the card up properly. I wanted that card to be fairly clean and smooth so that there were no imperfections showing through the covering if you rubbed your hand across it. Painful and it wasn't close to perfect either. And oh yes, latex gloves for sure. A lot were used. Another note is this. I would strongly recommend getting the foam and Satan glue off the backside as well. When you are recovering the cards and are handling them, if there is crap on the backside and you get that on your hands, you can be fairly certain you will be getting that shite on the good side just due to handling. So be mindful of this.

A few other notes. I set up a good size table on two saw horses that allowed me to walk around the entire headliner card. If you are doing this job, give yourself lots of space. And do it somewhere that is not a problem to get shite everywhere. DO NOT DO THIS IN YOUR KITCHEN!! The glue scrapings ended up on my garage floor and it makes a sticky mess everywhere. And I was pretty diligent about trying to keep clean and tidy. And then once you are done cleaning off all the cards and such, put it all aside and CLEAN UP EVERYTHING thoroughly. You do NOT want to get that Satan spawn guck stuff on your new coverings.

Just of note, when I was taking out the headliner, my car had no seats or carpets in the car. I'm changing my seat bases to black and also installing black carpet. Anyways, having all that stuff out seems to make pulling the headliner out very easy. I can't comment on the effort if the seats are still in the car.



ALSO......... thoughts on replacement "oh-shite-handles" and sunvisors? I've heard black ones from the same generation of 5-series and X5 can work? Can anyone confirm this at all ??? Or has anyone had any real long term success with dying or painting these parts ? Thanks in advance.

[Sabreslight]

Yeah, this microsuede I have doesn't stretch all that great due to the backing. But I will figure it out. My issue at the sunroof was that the rounded corners on the card didn't fair perfectly when stripping the glue off. So I've put down an fine coating of body filler and going to smooth those rounded corners back to perfection.

I used two putty knives to get that orange foam and "guck" off. One to scrape one to clean the scraper !! I then went back over the entire card with a glue remover to try and clean the card up properly. I wanted that card to be fairly clean and smooth so that there were no imperfections showing through the covering if you rubbed your hand across it. Painful and it wasn't close to perfect either. And oh yes, latex gloves for sure. A lot were used. Another note is this. I would strongly recommend getting the foam and Satan glue off the backside as well. When you are recovering the cards and are handling them, if there is crap on the backside and you get that on your hands, you can be fairly certain you will be getting that shite on the good side just due to handling. So be mindful of this.

A few other notes. I set up a good size table on two saw horses that allowed me to walk around the entire headliner card. If you are doing this job, give yourself lots of space. And do it somewhere that is not a problem to get shite everywhere. DO NOT DO THIS IN YOUR KITCHEN!! The glue scrapings ended up on my garage floor and it makes a sticky mess everywhere. And I was pretty diligent about trying to keep clean and tidy. And then once you are done cleaning off all the cards and such, put it all aside and CLEAN UP EVERYTHING thoroughly. You do NOT want to get that Satan spawn guck stuff on your new coverings.

Just of note, when I was taking out the headliner, my car had no seats or carpets in the car. I'm changing my seat bases to black and also installing black carpet. Anyways, having all that stuff out seems to make pulling the headliner out very easy. I can't comment on the effort if the seats are still in the car.



ALSO......... thoughts on replacement "oh-shite-handles" and sunvisors? I've heard black ones from the same generation of 5-series and X5 can work? Can anyone confirm this at all ??? Or has anyone had any real long term success with dying or painting these parts ? Thanks in advance.

Just wanted to pop in here and say I'm doing this same job and yeah it does suck.

And as for the handles, e66 handles will work also, and for the visors e53 X5 ones will work and if you want to get fancy e39 m5 leather visors will bolt up as well.

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[ConvGeorge]

Sadly, the orange stuff problem is endemic to all headliners, not just BMW. It's a mixture of foam and glue, and is the reason you can't just put the old headliner up with new glue - it needs the foam to make a good bond.

I used microsuede when I redid mine, and looking back I wish I had used regular material.

[Ruskii]

I simply painted my "oh shite" handles black and they look great! Besides, no one grabs them, at least in my car...

I also painted the sun visors, but recommend replacing them with OE ones (like e53, etc.)

[samsonevickis]

Well, maybe its a little late, but using some goo off and or brake parts cleaner and letting it soak and get clumpy makes it a LOT easier.

I have done this a good few times. But even I am not masochistic enough to do this on the E38.

Haha, have fun!

[Sabreslight]

Well, maybe its a little late, but using some goo off and or brake parts cleaner and letting it soak and get clumpy makes it a LOT easier.

I have done this a good few times. But even I am not masochistic enough to do this on the E38.

Haha, have fun!

So brake parts cleaner won't mess up the backing? I've done my pillars but I'm a bit hesitant to do the headliner

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[samsonevickis]

So brake parts cleaner won't mess up the backing? I've done my pillars but I'm a bit hesitant to do the headliner

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I had to do my A Pillars a few years back, didn't have a whole lot of time.

I carefully pulled off the fabric, too reuse.

Then misted the panels with brake parts cleaner and scraped away what I could with a plastic scraper. I didnt soak them. But no damage was done. As long as you don't soak the fiberboard stuff it should be just fine.

Then I used a few clean terry towels with isopropyl 90% and got the rest of it off. I got lucky and the fabric wasn't badly contaiminated with the orange fuzz. So I was able to brush it clean and then used some kind of 3M fabric glue, not a spray. They are holding up just fine 18mo later.

[sirbevo]

Maybe it's possible to use a portable sand blaster. Low PSI?

[tominizer]

Yeah, that's another good point. Some of the Goo-off stuff stayed on my roof card a bit too long and softened the card. when I went across with the spatula things got torn up a bit and I had to repair those places. We'll see shortly how it all shall turn out. Hoping to cover the roof card this weekend.

[xboss]

You guys are doing it wrong!

My black headliner and pillars are very nice and holding fine and I did not remove any of that dry foam. It's just a dry spongy material that already has a solid bond like you complain about right? So I just sprayed high quality liner glue right on it. The stuff soaks deep into the nice old crud and turns it back into a solid bond.

[tominizer]

So, headliner has been completed. I'm not entirely happy. For me to be entirely happy it has to look OEM new. It doesn't. But it was my mistake. The replacement fabric I used was micro suede. It has a backing on it that is NOT very stretchable. It actually has little to no give. Getting the grab handles done properly is a mission impossible given that fact. It does not conform into those grab handle pockets at all. I did the best I could to get it done. I may at some point re-do this headliner card, but next time it will be with another type of black material that I've used in the past with no backing. And it's not any type of suede.

Anyways, A/B/C pillars all done as well. It looks really good if you don't know where to look (!!) and get your nose right up into it. It was a big job..... a dirty job. I also sourced out some black e53 X5 sun visors and they bolted up perfectly. Black grab handles from a newer 7-series (E66) on their way as well off Ebay. So that roof thingy almost all done. BTW, I looked for those E39 M5 leather sun visors. LOL, ouchy on the price !!


I will try to post up some pictures shortly.......

[tominizer]

Here she is.

20190525_173117.jpg

[clarkitect]

Looks good.

[Sabreslight]

Looks fantastic

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[tominizer]

What's interesting is once you have the black headliner card installed with black A/B/C pillars, man does it change the "feel" of the interior of the car. It's so much more intimate inside but in an evil way. I REALLY like how it turned out. Just waiting on the grab handles and to see how I can hopefully get those installed without damaging the headliner work.


On another note, I changed the carpets to black as well from another 750il. The new (to my car) black carpet did not have the foot well lights on the back side behind your heels like my original TOBACCOBRUN carpet did. That was a surprise.

[agentrnge]

I had the deck lid out for a suspension refresh a few weeks back, and speaker replacement.. and "while I was in there" put fresh black cloth on the speaker cover and the farther back piece with the sunshade bits. Anywhoo, I had better luck using a razor blade to scrape the goo off. Its all finally back together. I goofed on one cut though. I am a little short on material on the lower edge where the sun shade comes out. When its retracted, the sunshade covers it so its not a big deal. I got some rubber weatherstripping stuff to try and patch over it with. We shall see how that goes. Got some light grey of the same stuff on the way to patch up the good in the headliner in the sunroof opening I mentioned earlier.

[fratrickbateman]

Yikes, I never went through that nonsense. I pulled the headliner and pillars myself and handed them over to the accessory shop. Glad I did! LOL

[tominizer]

Well, even though I used expensive glue ..... the RIGHT glue for headliners........ the sunroof pull shade piece with the cup handle seems to have fallen. So I have to pull that out and refinish it. Shitty. Fortunately, the rest of the headliner seems to be holding out decently. I don't know why, but when I was looking at it again, the idea of putting up some real deep shag on the roof liner crossed my mind. Kinda like a ghetto Cheech &Chong Weed filled Caddy theme thing........ I must have been way over-tired.

[franco90]

HERE is mine
New look






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[Sabreslight]

HERE is mine
New look






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Looks fantastic

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[joshhas99probs]

I have a couple extra sets of sunvisors and grab handles in black if anybody needs em. Pm me

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