Headliners are an often forgotten part of your car . . . until they decide to fall apart and rest on your head. It's not a pretty sight. But the same high temperatures your interior experiences on those hot days affect your headliner as much as the rest of your interior. After time, that cardboard-based headliner will give up and drape nicely on your forehead.
Our '86 Corvette headliner had fallen into bad condition. The cardboard had become so tired it often dropped scraps of paper as we drove. The fix came from the folks at Zip Products who have a complete fix-it kit that does a great job renewing the headliner surface. The kit comes with adhesive and headliner materials. The instructions are thorough and clear. For those looking for an exact OE-style headliner replacement, kit HT-355 is the ticket.
However, we don't always want to do the exact OE replacement thing with our Corvettes. Inspiration came from the folks at John's Customz & Performance, who suggested we incorporate a design in the headliner material using the Zip Products headliner as the base. With the help of the artisans at Afterdark Signworkz we have created a headliner with character.
Follow along as we demonstrate not only the proper replacement of a headliner, but how to design and execute a novel headliner at home.
If your headliner cardboard looks like this, you need a new one. The folks at Zip Products offer a complete headliner replacement kit for an exact OE-style final appearance. | 
1 Afterdark Signworkz created a design for our new headliner. We selected a Corvette emblem for obvious reasons. | 
2 With the design ready to go, Afterdark applied the design to a piece of 1/2-inch-thick foamcore board. |
3 Using an X-Acto knife, we cut out the areas in the design that were to be recessed in the final headliner appearance. | 
4 A little housekeeping was required to remove all of the old headliner debris. First, vacuum the surface. | 
5 Next, we cleaned the top with grease, wax, and silicone remover. The key to getting a headliner that stays put is starting with a good, clean surface. |
6 Using the Zip Products kit, we trimmed the supplied headliner to fit in the top. Then we applied the super-duty headliner adhesive to the base. | 
7 After letting the adhesive dry for a few minutes, we placed the design in the center. The entire headliner was again covered with fresh adhesive for the next step. In our situation, where we are molding a design into the headliner, a lot of adhesive must be used to help it adhere around the design. | 
8 If you have an intricate design such as ours, a lighter headliner fabric material is required to make the shape standout. We applied adhesive to this fabric before installation, again waiting for it to tack up. |