Sometime in its past, some water must have leaked in the rear window of my Mk2. As a result there is some slight staining of the headliner around the rear window frame and above the rear shelf. Does anyone have a suggestion on how I might go about tidying this up?
As always, any advice greatly appreciated.
It is called patina, and increases the value of the car manyfold. Don’t bother, you’ll only make it worse. David
I’ve never seen one cleaned successfully. I’ve seen a few with glaring clean spots where someone spot cleaned a glaring waterstain, and quite a few with a mottled surface and rust stains around the hoop strips where someone has tried to clean the whole thing.
Are there any new paint sprays with which one could paint the entire headliner. Maybe even glue up some shag carpeting:fearful:
The problem is that the cloth is by now pretty certainly rotted or dried out and there is a fair amount of rust and mildew in and above it. To clean it you would need to get it wet (to rinse the dirt out) If you use a steam cleaner then you’ll also soften the weave.
When you vacuum the moisture back out it will pull the dust resting on the upper surface through to the visible lower surface. If you get it wet enough to pull all the dirt out you will start the hoops rusting.
And as it dries it will either shrink or hang through.
Doesn’t a headliner replacement involve removal of the front and rear glass? Quite an ordeal!
Gerard
I’m not sure if you have to take the rear window out if the headliner is held up with listing sticks. If it’s a board backed headliner then the rear screen has to come out.
But not the front, so there is that to be glad about.
To do the MK2 headliner properly you need to take the back window out. You can get away without removing the front by’joining’ the old and new headliner underneath the wooden trim across the top of the front windscreen if the front is not too bad. ie leave the old trim tucked into the windscreen rubber. On mine it worked out fine. Close enough match.