The 66-onward 2+2 E-types had a fibre biscuit too - so that tech isn’t recent. Doubtless othdr cars had it even earlier. There were presumably variations in exact composition over the decades. The thin foam between cloth and glue layers is eventually the weak point though.
I recently had my headling replaced by a local automotive upholster, for £200. This compared very favourably with purchasing a fibreglass replacement, and saved me the bother of doing it myself. Well worth the money. Someone had tried a temporary repair, before I bought the car, and when the weather got warm the adhesive leaked all over the leather, so that was a false economy, and took a lot of cleaning.
Dear All,
I have to say that short of a true repair of the headliner, the twist-pins are a very sensible alternative.
I bought a set of 30 twist-pins on eBay for 2.79 € (2.4 GBP / US$3.50 ) from vendor “searchgoodshere” and they arrived in 10 days.
It turned out to be much easier to install than I anticipated. Since my car has a sunroof, the headliner was only sagging in the section between the back of the sunroof and the back window.
I used three rows of pins:
- one along the corner at the back of the sunroof - 13 pins
- two rows of 9 pins* spaced evenly between the first row of pins and the back window.
I started the first row with one pin in the center and then put the two pins on the outside (3 cm / 1.2 inches from the edge) and walked my way back to the center. If I ever do it again, once the two outside pins in place I would place a red or bright color thread between them to line them up perfectly.
Last piece of advice, when pushing the pins, so that the sharp tip is almost perpendicular to the headliner and once it goes in, just screw the pin in. It will work its way in and when reaching the straight part of the pin, the head will come flat holding the fabric in place.
At the end, I repositioned a few pins for a bicer alignment. I just “unscrewed” them and reinserted them in the right location. It didn’t leave any mark.
It took me about half an hour and the result is a dramatic improvement, not quite perfect but nice enough to last long (permanently). Should I ever want to do a perfect repair by removing and re-gluing the headliner, I would just remove the pins.
I hope this helps,
*Yes, it is a total of 31 pins, there was 1 extra in the pack.
I am attaching before / after pictures and a focus on how to insert the pins
