Many U12's and UA seem to suffer from the dreaded 'roof sag' which can creep in when cars reach 14+ years of age.
Its easy fixed!
The whole headliner has to come out of the car and be re-glued.
All the plastic trimming around the edges of the liner have to be removed as well as the centre light, map light and the sun visors. The jesus christ handles (thanks JIMBO) also have to be removed above all doors except the drivers, which obviously doesn't have one.
All the plastic trim is held on with clips. Almost all are these tanky assed metal things, that can be both hard to get off and to get back on. We unclipped the sections in the back corners first, above the rear doors quarter glass. There are two screws, one on each side panel and one plastic screw/clip thingo on each as well. We then took off all the JC handles by poping the plastic sections back to expose the screws, then took the buggers off.
Centre light simply turns, then the cover pops off. Undo the screws holding it onto the roof then unplug it from the loom. Map light (if you have one) unclips, there are no screws holding it on. Uplug that from the loom as well (diirrrr). Unscrew your sun visors now to get them out of the way.
The trim all the way along, from the back doors forward and the centre section along the top of the rear window is held on with those metal clips. You have to pull it quite hard, but it does come off. Don't be too psycho or you'll break the sections of plastic.
At some stage you'll have to remove the little plastic clip/screw thingos on the roof above the back seats. Try not to break them as holes in your roof will look crappy (obviously).
Once you have the roof free, pull it out. We took it straight out the open hatch, but on a sedan you have to bend the roof some-what and squeeze it out one of the back doors.
A naked roof!
Once your roof is naked and the liner is sitting outside, its time to have a look. This is what our Ti's headliner looked like once we took it out.
And this is what it looked like once we peeled the fabric back to the edges of the roof light hole (it worked well as the spot to work from).
We headed down to bunnings and got a can of Bostick spray on glue ($7.50). All we did was spray around 30 square cm's of the roof in each step, then press it down. The glue started to dry after about 5minutes. Make sure your hands are clean while doing this, as you'll dirty the liner once you get wet glue on your fingers.
The whole thing is glued down, now go back over it and check all the edges. I peeled some back and added more glue before we set it on the bonnet to dry in the sun. No point doing all this, gluing it all then putting it back and a section sags back down.
Urq's in deep concentration in this photo, working out which wire to take for the stereo. The red or blue...
Putting it back in is relativley easy. Slide it back in, the same way you took it out. We put the sunvisors on first and the JC handles as they screw through the liner, which holds the roof up while we clip in the trims.
Once its all back together savour the smooth 'un-saggy' beauty of your roof
Topic: how to: fixing a sagging roof lining (Read 17350 times)