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[drhach]

Hi Everyone, I am new here and this is my first post. I've been lurking for a while. Anyway, the reason I joined is that I have a couple of classic cars and I am wanting to delve more and more into the upholstery side of things. One of the cars that I own is a 1942 Buick. It has what I believe to be the original headliner. It is in very nice shape except for one tear near the rear window which is about 3-4 inches long. It's bad enough that it's quite noticeable but not so bad that I feel I should replace the headliner. I'm wondering about the possibility of sewing it shut. I understand that the repair would be visible but it (might) stop it from getting worse and probably would look better than the hole that is there now.

My other issue is that the car has cloth covered wiring which I feel is very unsafe. I have a new harness but the wiring for the dome light and the rear lights goes over the headliner along the driver side. I'm wondering about unhooking the liner, routing the wires and then reattaching the headliner.

I think my two concerns would be ripping the headliner and having wrinkles where there weren't any before. Has anyone ever tried this? Am I crazy for thinking about doing this? I'm trying to preserve the originality of the car wherever possible Any guidance or suggestions would be appreciated. I've searched high and low, and I haven't found any discussion online about reusing a headliner.

Regards,
Dan

[JimmieJoe]

Regarding sewing the headliner; if it is still structural so that it will hold the thread instead of letting the thread tear through because the fabric is weak. Then you can sew it and hide you sewing with flock, provide you have a single color fabric with not pattern in the area of the tepair.

[drhach]

Thanks for your reply, I was thinking that some sort of "baseball" stitch or sewing a backer on to it would do the trick. I suppose it could be sewn from the front if reattaching the headliner is not possible.

[JimmieJoe]

Baseball stitch would be appropriate if the fabric will support the stitching.

[missgee]

ive tried many times to restitch a headliner seam..i have even removed the whole headliner,sewed it on my upholstery machine and put it back in..unless the headliner is relatively new,its going to end up in worse shape when your done with it .
just the little bit of moving the material around when you put your curved needle thru it will make it rip more..headliners are fairly cheap
stockinteriors.com has one for every year,make and model vehicle ....and... if you like i can tell you the secret for installing one that will make it a breeze..

[drhach]

I would love to hear your secret. I just installed a new wiring harness. I was able to untack and retack the headliner. But after 82 years, there isn't much flex in the fabric. I may still try to sew the hole closed, but I've pretty much conceded to the fact that I need to replace the headliner.