Headliner blues.... sometimes

[Uncle Lar]

So, let me throw this out here.  I have been installing headliners for a few years now.  Not everyday, but i'd  say long enough to have decent experience with them.  In general, they turn out nice, and the customers are happy with them.  I made one for a 37 chevy street rod last year and it turned out really nice, and the customer loves it.  However, there have been some pre-made ones lately that seem to be extra stubborn, and I'm not sure if I need to change my technique ( very, very possible...), or if there are issues with how these headliners actually fit the cars.
   The problem comes in removing the wrinkles between the bows, where the ends of the bows meet the body of the car.  It often seems like there is just a little more material between the bows than I actually want, so when I attach the fabric (usually vinyl) to the car, I get the dreaded little "tee pee" coming off the bows.  If I lessen how much I stretch, then I don't have enough tension on the fabric between the bows, and it just looks too loose.
  By the way, this problem seems to show up often in late 1960's GM G bodies (chevelle, skylark, cutlass, lemans), but i'm not sure if its just those cars, or because I seem to do more of these lately than any others.  These are ones that usually have 3 sets of holes for each bow, although I always set them in the original ones. The center bow is attached to the car body with metal prongs through the listing over the length of the bow, and the ends remain unanchored to the car body. I've tried getting a good stretch first on the front and rear, then anchoring the sides. I've also tried tacking the front and rear lightly and setting the sides from the center out to the front and rear, then adjusting the headliner at the windshield and rear window.  I just did a chevelle, and ended up changing the rear bow position to another hole on one side to help remedy the situation.  It did help, but it doesn't seem I should have to go thorough and readjust bows to make the headliner fit.
  Again, they don't look bad, but i'd like to improve on this.  So, what do you think?  Thanks!

[mike802]

Uncle Lar: There are people on this board who do a lot more auto work than I do, but I will tell you what has worked for me in the past, you may already know this anyway. 

I snip away the extra listing on the pre made headliners, between the listing and the seam so not to cut the thread, or the actual headlining material. 

I have had headliners that when snapped into those plastic clips you mention would always wrinkle the headliner, in those situations I have cut away the listing in the spot where the clip is to free the fabric from being clipped.

A good steamer really helps to shrink, or stretch the headlining material for wrinkle removal.

Sometimes a rivet has to be used to hold the fabric to pull out a wrinkle.

In some cases I have had to alter the headliner by removing it and sewing a corner seam just a little tighter.

Hope this helps.

[Uncle Lar]

Thanks Mike.  I always snip the listing at the end of the bows.  I try to keep it cut to within an inch of where the bow goes in the car body.  Maybe this isn't enough.  I thought about not putting the bow in the clips, but I was a little gun shy of it as I saw one someone did, and it sagged there, although they may have cut the listing too much, so I will keep that in mind.  I use steam, although I have not used it during the installation.  I have always used it after the headliner was in place.  So maybe I should use it some while trying to stretch it.  Maybe I don't get enough pull down the bows from the center of the roof to the ends of the bows.  I pull fairly hard on them, but do I really need to pull quite hard on them?  Although, it seems its all relative, and the length of the bow doesn't really give me a lot of problems wrinkle wise.  Its usually at the ends, dealing with the material between the bows, where I attach it to the car.  Thanks for the input!

[Uncle Lar]

On monday I installed a headliner in a 74 roadrunner.  The headliner had been removed from the car years ago, but fortunately they kept the old one, and left the bows inserted in the listings.  The inside of the car's roof had been painted, and there were no reference marks to determine which holes were the right ones for the bows (each bow end had 3 different holes to choose from).  I cemented some sound deadener in the the roof, and chose the holes that let the bows just touching the deadener without being so tight the listing couldn't move.  This one turned out super nice. I had no problems removing wrinkles between the bows on the ends.  It went just exactly the way it should have.  Which, once again, makes me wonder why some go great (mopars usually seem to) and others are more difficult (like a-body gm).  Maybe I need to loosen up a little and be more willing to try other holes when putting the bows back in.  I have been told that certain models would use only certain holes for the bows, but maybe that's not exactly true.  Maybe they moved them around til the headliner fit, regardless of the model??????

Has anyone tried putting a headliner in a chevelle, nova, cutlass, skylark, etc. without using the plastic clips in the center?  Thanks for the info!