The Upholstery Forum

I was wondering what order everyone builds their full interiors? Headliner, Carpet, Panels, Seats? Interested in everyone's school of thought on why. My first full interior starts September 3! Here she is.

I have the same question. And that is a car I have dreamed of since I was a kid

I’ve never done a full interior the most is what I’d say is a 3/4 interior. They either use the stock carpet or headliner. In either case I always do those first. My thinking on this is, if I do the seats first, the carpet and headliner has to be installed before they go in. I guess headliner can be done with seats in but it’s a whole lot harder. But in the mean time if the seats are done and just sitting, this leaves me a good opportunity to scratch them or ruin them. So I tend to do the seats and door panels last. So they can be installed right when finished. But for these cases I’m never doing anything too custom more of just a interior freshen up if you will. Hope that makes sense. But with everyone you ask I would assume you’ll get a different answer. Which isn’t bad. It gives you options to try. Best of luck and post pics as you go along the build!

Well lots of things can change the order of things. You need to always be thinking 10 steps ahead to make sure you arn't stepping on your toes. Typically I go Carpet , headliner, Panels, Seats.
I do the carpet first so I don't destroy my knees when doing the headliner. If you do that you need to be careful to keep the carpet clean. If your are adding seats that arn't original make sure to mount and fit them before to the car before you do the carpet. Also if you find yourself needing to take the seats in and out multiple times for some reason Its better to do it without the door panels on because its really easy to damage a door panel taking the seats in and out multiple times.

Hope this helps! Looks like an awesome project!!

Thank you for the input, John. I'm watching the video again now .

@kl4bidn johns answer was so much better than mine lol. Didn’t even think of the fact of making sure seats are able to bolt down right or any modifications need to be made to the car specifically. You would think being a body man by trade who loves doing interior work, that would be something I’d think of lol

Lol @Cody , you probably would have if it had been in front of you. I never thought about my knees, only keeping the carpet clean, but never considered a drop cloth in my thinking!

@Cody Your answer was great! We all have different ways of doing things and can learn form each other. Everyone's contribution on here makes a big difference!

@Cody,

I am curious to know what you use for hand cleaner. Moving for bodyman by day to trimmer by night means those hands have to be clean at night.

A lot of time anything with pumice. Go jo or the like. It really dries out the hands but when my hands are greasy vs dusty/dirty from body fillers etc, I grab dish soap. May have to wash twice but cuts the grease lol. If it’s something I know won’t wash off like the panel bond I use for gluing on parts, I’ll wear latex gloves. My hands always look worse than they are too. A lot of it is stains that won’t wash out.

I also have to worry about this @BigRig. I do a lot of mechanic and fabrication work as well. I use the same Gojo soap as @Cody. One thing I will do is keep scraps of white fabric around and before I start working I will rub my hands on the white fabric. If any black comes off on the scrap fabric I know I need to go wash better.

I generally start with the carpet because everything else goes on top of it. Head liners are usually second because they are sometimes very difficult to get in once the seats and so forth are installed. Some headliners on the old cars have to go in first because they wrap around under the glass. But, there again, it all depends on the car.