Do Headliner, Overhead Compartment, Flip Lcd

[turtles_ride]

All right, I’ve wanted to do this mod for a while but was a little bit intimidated because nobody from the site could give me much help. It’s a lot easier then I thought it would be and doesn’t take that long either (and its one of my favorite mods!). I should let you know that the instructions are for my 2000 Alero 2 door without a sunroof, but I’d imagine that it would be similar for any other year 2 doors. It takes about an hour to get the roofliner off, 1hour to recover it with material (plus drying time for the glue), 2 hours to hook up the flipdown LCD display and fix roofliner curve problems with sponge, and 1 hour to put the newly covered liner back up.

NOTE: DO THIS MOD AT YOUR OWN RISK, NOBODY ELSE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WAY THIS TURNS OUT(OR DOESN’T TURN OUT) BUT YOURSELF!


Make sure you have everything you need first.
Wear long sleeves because the back of the roofliner has itchy insulation on it
T15 or T25 torx screwdriver (to remove the rearview mirror, recommended)
Phillips Head screwdriver (to remove sunvisors)
Pointy knife (to remove coat hangers and the clips that the visors snap into)
Butter knife (to pry off plugs at back of roof)
Carpet/headliner spray adhesive (make sure its okay for foam)
5 feet square of material you want to use (if reupholstering)
Scissors to cut the material
LCD and screws(might as well put one of these up while you got the roof down!!)
Or 2 x ½ inch screws if putting your overhead compartment back up

1. Start at the front and pull off the 2 pieces of plastic that go from the dash to the roof. On each one, pull the top clip first, then the one in the middle (don’t pull the middle one too hard or you’ll break the plastic) I put the butter knife close to the clip, behind the plastic and foam, and used it to pry the plastic off a little easier

[turtles_ride]

After the 2 clips are out just pull the loose plastic up toward the ceiling and it will come out of the dash.

[turtles_ride]

2. Undo the 2 screws that hold each of the visors to the ceiling and pull them off.

[turtles_ride]

Use the pointy knife to pull out the little tab that holds the other clip that the sunvisors attach to, off the ceiling. Or if you tug hard enough on the clip it might just come off.

[turtles_ride]

3. Use the torx screwdriver to undo the screw holding the rearview mirror to the window, and undo the wire to the rearview built in lights (if you have them). Now place your fingers above where the mirror was, between the headliner and the windshield, and pull down until the metal clips holding the overhead compartment to the roof detach from the roof.

[turtles_ride]

Don’t pull on the overhead compartment itself or you’ll break the 2 front pieces holding the visor up. I’ll show you those later. The overhead compartment will still be attached to the headliner by 2 smaller posts near the opening of the compartment, with washer type clips on them, you can’t see these until you have the headliner down, so leave the overhead compartment on for now.

[turtles_ride]

4.Now heading to the back of the car. The overhead light is attached by 2 push tabs in the middle of the lights. I removed mine by wiggling it back and forth, but the plastic pushtabs are made of hard plastic and mine were damaged.

[turtles_ride]

I fixed this when I reattached the light by using a small metal screw which, when placed exactly where the picture shows, will screw into the overhead crossbar and not through your roof (only do this if your overhead light won’t stay in on its own when you put it back in later.)

[turtles_ride]

5. The back of the roofliner is held up in 3 places.
2 pushtabs in the middle of the liner, about 5 inches from the back windshield. Remove each of these by using the butter knife to pry them away from the liner as you wiggle the tab from side to side.

[turtles_ride]

The 2 coat hooks are removed by pulling the tab in the center of the hook with the pointy knife.

[turtles_ride]

At the sides, the 2 plastic pieces around the back side windows don’t have to be removed, just pulled down enough for the liner to slide out. Each sidepiece has 2 metal clips near the top that can be easily pulled away from the roofliner.

[turtles_ride]

Now just pull the roofliner out of the rubber moldings around your door so that it hangs freely. Pull the roofliner down and cut the tape holding the wires to the liner. Retape these wires to the roof to keep them out of the way. The roofliner should now be able to be slid forward towards the windshield and out the door to be worked on

[turtles_ride]

6. If you break the plastic clips on your overhead compartment they can be fixed by cutting the remaining plastic post level with the roofliner, holding it in place against the headliner, and then screwing a small screw and washer into each of the posts to hold it onto the headliner,

[turtles_ride]

these screws won’t be seen when the liner is back up.

[turtles_ride]

7. If you want to recover your roof follow these steps.
NOTE: THIS MOD IS NOT REVERSIBLE, YOUR ORIGINAL LINER WILL BE RUINED BY GLUE, SO MAKE SURE YOU LIKE THE MATERIAL YOU CHOOSE
Get a piece of stretchy material you like, about 5ftx5ft
I’m not sure how well vinyl will work, as my material was very stretchy.
First of all, line it up over the removed headliner to make sure it will fit, then put it somewhere it won’t get glue on it.

[turtles_ride]

Spray about ¾ of the can of headliner glue all over the roofliner material that’s already on there and wait about 15 minutes to let it dry a bit. Save the other ¼ of the can to spray on the back edge of the roofliner. The glue should look like silly string coming out of the can, and may bubble when it hits the old material headliner. Letting it dry a bit will allow your material to be repositioned a few times until you get all the wrinkles and air bubbles out.
Pull the material to the edges of the roofliner and pin it around the edges, so that its tight in the middle like a trampolin

[turtles_ride]

Now press down in the middle, where the overhead light was, and work your way to the edges, pull it back up a bit from underneath if you need to get a wrinkle out.
Flip the roofliner over and spray glue around the back edges. Let it dry a few 15 minutes. Now attach the remaining material tightly over the back of the liner. Flip it over to make sure everything looks tight and allow the whole thing to dry a couple of hours. Cut out the hole where the overhead light goes, the overhead compartment, and poke holes for the rear roof tabs, coat hooks, and sunvisors. To reinstall, just do everything in the reverse order. Its not that hard to do, and it looks great because it’s a mod that covers a large area of your car that isn’t touched very often.

[turtles_ride]

8. Installing an LCD flipdown.
I’m sure every flip down has different screw positions but I got pretty lucky with mine. The place where the overhead compartment was, fit my 7inch LCD almost perfectly. With the headliner down, I positioned the screw holes in the bottom of my LCD to be in the overhead cross bar behind where the overhead compartment was. I screwed the LCD directly into the metal crossbar of the car using self tapping metal screws. Then I took it down and found where the holes had to be in the roofliner and drilled those holes to line up with the crossbar. However the roofliner had funny curves to it that didn’t fit to my LCD. I fixed this problem by tracing the bottom of the display onto a piece of 1-inch sponge, cutting it out, and placing it underneath the new headliner fabric so that the LCD covered it exactly. This was tricky and took me about a half hour to get right. When you put the roofliner back up and screw the LCD into the crossbar, it compresses the sponge and causes the new matrial to be pushed flush against the base of the LCD, neat huh?

[turtles_ride]

Then I ran the wires across the front of the roofliner when I put it back up, down the drivers side windshield (underneath the plastic), and into the fusebox.

[turtles_ride]

I attached it with a piggyback fuse to the accessory power and grounded it to the frame.

[turtles_ride]

Everything went like butta and it all looks fabulous. Just remember not to watch the flipdown while your driving as it covers the rearview mirror, and is hazardous to drive while being distracted. :o And remember when watching porn, everyone else can see it too, haha. :popcorn: Good luck. Please don't post any replies in this section, if you want to respond, do it in the alero appearance section titled 'bringin da roof down' or private message me if you have any problems.
Thanks for looking and happy modding.

[bdyman]

wow cool!!!
and i thought i loved flames

[OpalaAlero]

Thats pretty nuts...nice job.

[brim]

definately nice job

and thx for the write up

[Silentalero]

haha ur headliner looks like sperm, lol

btw Very nice write up dood!!!!

[alerocity]

that' s good work, but da headliner doesn' t look to hot

[AleroSS]

Very informative and well written How To dude, not a fan of the fabric you chose, but props for an awesome and well explained job :D

[turtles_ride]

everyone has solid plain fabric or vinyl for their extra colour, i just wanted to try something different then everyone else, thats what moddings all about, making a very common car your own! :thumbsup: Thats why i do it anyway, originality is something that should be strived for. Believe it or not, i don't even notice it when i get in my car.

[justinusaf]

More Pics Of a Headliner done using this How To.. Thank you TurtlesRide (http://invision.aleromod.com/index.php?showtopic=5652)

[SikMindz]

Awesome write-up. I'm just assuming that the GA headliner is held in almost exactly the same. I think I just may try this out soon!

[Redog]

whoo looks good but I'm trippin lookin at the pic :wacko:

[glowbot]

Thanks for the write up. This helps a lot. I have a 4 door 99 alero so it's a bit different but should be the same idea.

Adam

[cruisinalero]

does anyone no how to remove the moonroof part of the headliner...
i am having some troubles...

[cruisinalero]

here is a pic of the sliding moonroof headliner part...
it isnt apparent of how to get this part out...

[cruisinalero]

was no one done this with a sun roof before???
can anyone help me...

[cruisinalero]

the front of the headliner part is attached to a rail...
i can only pull it back towards the back window before the rail stops it from moving...
i can get the back of the headliner out of the rail...

[cruisinalero]

please i really need some help with this...
i have everything down and ready except the sunroof piece...

[cruisinalero]

ok i figured it out...
it was very simple...
there are 4 springs beneath the liner that hold the part into the rail
just move the springs in and take it out

[cruisinalero]

anyone know how to do the sunvisors???

[turtles_ride]

i did the sunvisors too. Just pull the arm that they're attached to all the way out. Then get someone to sew a cover for them. If you have mirrors on the visors, cut a hole in the cover about 1/2 inch smaller then the mirror all the way around and use a butter knife to tuck the material in around the edge of the mirror all the way around, its not that difficult. unstitch the corner of the mateial so that you can stick the post back in and pop em back up. The biggest PITA is sewing the cover itself.

[cruisinalero]

ok i will try that...