Alcantara headliner retrofit

[jaylazy2020]

Charcoal 9002 on the visors looks amazing.

[jaylazy2020]

I've been so busy with work this project has stalled.

But I finally got the headliner ready. Plenty of small mistakes along the way but when the microphone trim is installed for example it looks well.

I'm not looking forward to getting current headliner out and this one in!

[val580]

Indeed it looks nice on sun visors.

I visited a car detailing shop last week, she offered to re-do sun visors in nappa leather.

They offered to do the whole car alcantara job all at once. for a grand more or less.

They have alcantara-like material but have concerns about glue sipping thru.

I will try in next weeks with spare parts :

- sun visors in black nappa leather and in black suede
- A-pillars in black suede and gey/charcoal suede

what do you think of leather sun visors ? its the same leather quality as bmw door or dashboard

just to be clear : you do not use glu at all but a heat gun only ?

[jaylazy2020]

Originally Posted by val580

Indeed it looks nice on sun visors.

I visited a car detailing shop last week, she offered to re-do sun visors in nappa leather.

They offered to do the whole car alcantara job all at once. for a grand more or less.

They have alcantara-like material but have concerns about glue sipping thru.

I will try in next weeks with spare parts :

- sun visors in black nappa leather and in black suede
- A-pillars in black suede and gey/charcoal suede

what do you think of leather sun visors ? its the same leather quality as bmw door or dashboard

just to be clear : you do not use glu at all but a heat gun only ?

I understand the point about the glue seeping thru as it happened to me in places(very minor) but it was more due to me applying too much or not spreading it well.

I first used a 3M carpet adhesive to spray on and they only heated the areas I needed to mould.

With hindsight I should have applied heat to each section as I spread and pressed the material down.

There is a company in Germany that do a very nice alcantara retrim but you have to visit them with the car and prob leave it with them for a few days and it's €2000

So what you have been quoted is good value.

Would they strip off the existing material?

I ask this because other guides have done this but then applied a foam backed alcantara which may explain less creases as I seem to have spent hours getting them out of mine

https://shop.benda-interiors.com/en/...shing-assembly

Even though mine will have small errors here and there I can't wait to see it when finished.

One thing I have to re do is the rear shelf as it's gets so hot from the sun that the point where there is tension in the fabric has lifted slightly but I now have the heat gun rather than hair dryer so should be easy to fix.



https://shop.benda-interiors.com/en/...shing-assembly

[jaylazy2020]

This guide has three parts and his foam backed alcantara and contact glue looks very easy to apply with steam.

[jaylazy2020]

I couldn't add photos to a pm so posting them here to show how I tried to wrap the sunvisors so the join faces the wind shield and can't be seen.

[val580]

Great job !

how did you manage to stitch it ?

I finished my front end.

I finally went with leather , alcantara was nice but looked out the place.
This was not using OP alcantara but with samples from the detail shop.

Suns visors are leather too.

I ran an issue : the shop put the material on top on the orginal fabric and I could not put the A pillar back because it was too thick.

I had to cut one of two plastic notch to put it back. This was easy with a simple knife as dremel.

I also lost some metalic strap of A pillars and damaged yellow plastic strap. Had to unscrew the part near the knees to recover the metallic straps..

Fortunately I bought two A pillars for tests and they had some of the fragile yellow strap in place...

bottom line : leather is good , happy with it , painfull to put in place.
paid 160 euros for 2 A pillars + 2 sun visors.

considering thickness issues , i'm not keen on doing B and C pillars.

I think alcantara must be done A + B + C + suns visors to look good , like your car.

[jaylazy2020]

Originally Posted by val580

Great job !

how did you manage to stitch it ?

I finished my front end.

I finally went with leather , alcantara was nice but looked out the place.
This was not using OP alcantara but with samples from the detail shop.

Suns visors are leather too.

I ran an issue : the shop put the material on top on the orginal fabric and I could not put the A pillar back because it was too thick.

I had to cut one of two plastic notch to put it back. This was easy with a simple knife as dremel.

I also lost some metalic strap of A pillars and damaged yellow plastic strap. Had to unscrew the part near the knees to recover the metallic straps..

Fortunately I bought two A pillars for tests and they had some of the fragile yellow strap in place...

bottom line : leather is good , happy with it , painfull to put in place.
paid 160 euros for 2 A pillars + 2 sun visors.

considering thickness issues , i'm not keen on doing B and C pillars.

I think alcantara must be done A + B + C + suns visors to look good , like your car.

That's blends really well to match the door card and dash

[dp310]

Does anyone knows where I can get the headliner and pillars done somewhere in Orange county CA or the surrounding areas? I would love to do it my self but as off right now I really don't have time.

[cotmfk]

This is a really cool project. Something else to add to the bucket list! 👍👍

[Rokoz]

I'd love to do this myself but I imagine getting the headliner in and out of the car is brutal

[Cnote406]

Love this project.

[jmciver]

So for the OP, do you have any finished pics of the headliner installed? Also, did you delete the "oh shit" handles when you covered your headliner? In your last headliner pic, it does not look like the areas for the oh shit handles were smoothed out…

This thread gave me the inspiration to try this myself. I picked up a few used A-pillars and some genuine 9002 Alcantara to play with. If all goes well with wrapping those pieces, I will continue on….

Edit: NVM re: the “oh shit” handles. Didn’t realize the F32/82 did not have them, but the F30/80 does (four of them) making the job a bit harder regarding stretching the material in those areas - but not impossible .

[jmciver]

So I just did my test pieces today using some genuine 9002 Alcantara (a set of A-pillars I bought off eBay), and was successful. After watching a few how-to videos, I decided to use a brush on gel contact cement, vice a spray contact cement. This gave me more control of where I wanted the contact cement to go (and not go). Worked out well and the stuff I used can be found at your local Lowes for ~$22 for 32 oz.

So I guess now I have to do everything else . Although, the headliner still has me a bit weary due to some of the complex curves. But I will cross that bridge when I get there . Thanks again to the OP for the inspiration!!

Here is the video I used as a basic guide to use the brush on contact cement method, followed by my A-pillar results and a pic of the contact cement I used:

[jmciver]

Making more progress…. Figured I would show pics of the 3rd brake light trim piece as the sedan version is a bit different than the coupe version. There is a rubber/plastic gasket piece on the end that comes in contact with the rear window. I could not figure how to get it off without potentially breaking it so I put painters tape on it. I then glued/wrapped the material over the seam line between the plastic trim piece and the gasket. Then after wrapping the whole piece, I used a sharp exacto knife/blade to cut along the seam and remove the excess. Worked out pretty well….

I also added a shot of the B-pillar, which is also slightly different than the coupe version (but not as much).

[jmciver]

Another update, as this process has definitely gone slower than initially planned (but I like the results so far). This time I did the rear parcel shelf. Definitely the hardest piece so far just based on its size. Again, the sedan version is a bit different, but in my case, I also have the rear roller sun blind, which apparently is a fairly common option on the F80 sedan. I took a few exterior finished shots of the rear deck, but admittedly, it is a bit difficult to photograph, especially with tinted windows…

The sun blind was a real PITA to re-install on the shelf due to the additional thickness added by the Alcantara. There are two metal "channels" on the sun blind (where it slides into the cutout in the parcel shelf) that I needed to widen slightly using a screw driver (did not take a pic, but easy to understand and perform when you see it). I also had the opportunity to practice "stretching" the Alcantara for the first time using heat (a heat gun) in the areas where the shelf connects to the rear cross frame of the car using the plastic rivets.

As the headliner is my last large piece, I plan to shift to a spray adhesive. The brush stuff I have been using is great (and cost effective) for the small pieces like the pillars. But it became very "long" for the parcel shelf. The spray stuff I intend to use is also by DAP Weldwood and is specifically designed for automotive applications:

https://www.dap.com/products-project...d-high-streng/

Not available locally, but not hard to find online. Incidentally, the 32 oz can I posted above was enough to do the A, B & C pillars and the rear parcel shelf (but not the sun visors).

[jmciver]

One last update before the "big one" aka doing the actual headliner…. Got the visors done and as the OP mentioned, these take some patience. I probably spent more time on the visors than the rear shelf. Even though these are small, I would definitely recommend doing these last if this is your first time doing this (or at least up until the headliner). I actually messed up on my first attempt, scrapping it and starting from scratch again…

I also recommend using the video below as a guide. After watching several videos on reupholstering visors, I thought this one was the best as it showed BMW sun visors, which are a very different construction than just about any other visor DIYs I could find. The car in the video is an E9x, but the visor construction is very similar to the F3x/F8x. Also, the method he uses is most applicable IMO (i.e. no stitching)…

One other tip for the visors is when removing the factory skin, cut along the seam of the factory skin so that you can use it as a template for the mirror cutout. The cutout in the foam body is larger than just the mirror cutout in order to hold the entire mirror mechanism. After you cover the visor in Alcantara using the method above, using the original visor skin as a basic template will help ensure the mirror cutout is in the right spot.

Pics below are my final results, including a few pics of the mirror guts with the factory skin removed…

[Rokoz]

Love the progress updates, things are looking great so far

[Innovade]

Any worries about the adhesive failing over time due to heat?

[jmciver]

Originally Posted by Innovade

Any worries about the adhesive failing over time due to heat?

Not for me as I used adhesives (contact cement) that are designed to handle the automotive environment, in particular the heat. For my visors, I did use the "original" DAP Weldwood contact cement (which is available locally at any home improvement store) even though technically it is not the variant that is specifically recommended for automotive use. However, after reading the data sheets on all of the DAP Weldwood contact cement products, the original stuff has the same basic temperature resistance as the gel version I was using. Also, the visors are very small compared to other pieces like the parcel shelf and the headliner, so I felt comfortable using that version on the visors (especially since I did not want to buy another 32 oz can of the gel since I am not using the gel for the headliner).

Also, I used the original stuff in the spray can since I wanted some practice using a spray adhesive before I tackled the headliner, since I will be using the spray version I linked above for the headliner.

[Innovade]

Originally Posted by jmciver

Not for me as I used adhesives (contact cement) that are designed to handle the automotive environment, in particular the heat. For my visors, I did use the "original" DAP Weldwood contact cement (which is available locally at any home improvement store) even though technically it is not the variant that is specifically recommended for automotive use. However, after reading the data sheets on all of the DAP Weldwood contact cement products, the original stuff has the same basic temperature resistance as the gel version I was using. Also, the visors are very small compared to other pieces like the parcel shelf and the headliner, so I felt comfortable using that version on the visors (especially since I did not want to buy another 32 oz can of the gel since I am not using the gel for the headliner).

Also, I used the original stuff in the spray can since I wanted some practice using a spray adhesive before I tackled the headliner, since I will be using the spray version I linked above for the headliner.

Good to hear. Thanks for the info. I love the way an alcantara headliner looks, but I would hate if it ever starts drooping. I've seen this happen in a few different cars with aftermarket interior upgrades and wasn't sure if it was because of the adhesives used or not.

[Marioec]

Wow looks awesome . I remember when I did it on my E46 M3 and it was a lot of work

Congrats !!!!