Magnetic headliner install a huge success

Did you peel off your existing OEM headliner first?
Or is the magnetic material strong enough to stay in place on top of the original headliner?

@mpaschetto, I removed the old headliner, the foam had turned into dust. The magnet sheet needs to be directly on metal. I could have skipped the very tedious process of removing the old glue that was stuck to the roof though - that was a pain and a mess.

Thanks J,

My (original?) headliner is attached directly to the roof, no foam to be found.
I suppose I could buy the magnetic material and see if it stays in place before going thru the trouble of removing the existing headliner...

Mike

Hi Mike,
Most people replace the headliner because they start to droop and spread disintegrated foam dust everywhere. If yours is just the vinyl attached to the roof, it's probably a replacement. Pretty easy to remove, it's getting the old glue off that's hard.

The aftermarket one I got from Hall and, I believe the factory one as well, are vinyl laminated to thin foam:

I should add that the width of the roll is 24 3/8" which is perfect front to back. You only need to cut left and right to length (it's a trapezoid) and round the front corners.

Excellent, thanks for the info!

I did this years ago. I reused the old headliner. Just rub off the old rotting foam and glue the vinyl to the magnet.

Thanks for the tip Mike! Brilliant.

Love this idea, thank you!

I think that was me who posted this tip a while back, though I borrowed the idea from someone else too.  Used the original head liner material after cleaning the deteriorated old foam off the backside - worked great.

@mpaschetto posted:

Thanks J,

My (original?) headliner is attached directly to the roof, no foam to be found.
I suppose I could buy the magnetic material and see if it stays in place before going thru the trouble of removing the existing headliner...

Mike

I bought a 5' roll of this magnetic material to see if it would stay in place over my existing headliner.....it doesn't.
If anyone would like it, you can have it for what I paid, and I'll ship it to you for free; you'll save roughly $30 shipping and tax.