I'm not so sure I could do speaker bumpouts. I don't vacuume bag this because it's flat and doens't really need it and the mold/foam board wouldn't support it. In order to make speaker mounts that have contour it would require some pressure to hold the glass in place (7781 is a really stiff glass weave). Now all that being said there are lots of low profile speakers that are 2" deep or less that would mount to the liner and still not hit the roof. I would thing that it would need to be pushed as far out to the sides and to the back as possible to ensure that the speaker didn't put too much stress into the liner.


Do you have Jump seats or a rear bench and how willing are you to cut your interior panels or the sheet metal behind them?


I installed my rear speakers behind the rear panels and then made .125" abs pieces that have 1/4" holes (lots of them) and then covered it in speaker material (see red circle). This may be an out of the way solution that might work for you.

 

No speakers in the headliner, the liner is just flat and the overhead consol and rear map/dome lights are taken from a late 90's chev tahoe/suburban and were then covered in the same headliner material that I covered the headliner in. They bolt to the main roof forward/aft support bar.

 

Been a while since I did much fiberglassing and I know resin has gone up but you could probably use about half a gallon and then you'd have a couple yards of thin mat or cloth so I'm thinking $30-40 materials cost (before any finishing products and without mold wax) but on a small scale you'd have a couple hours prep and labor and you'd end up with a huge flimsy package that measured 8.5 feet around the edges that no one would ship for less than a fortune...

Definitely a cool idea to inspire others to emulate at home though.

It is really an ideal product for someone with a vacuum table and a hest lamp to repro out of textured black abs plastic. I think you could pop them out for fifty bucks each and still turn a nice profit and they wouldn't need any finishing for most users. Shipping would still be a problem.

 

It takes about 1/3 of a gallon of resin @ $50ish a gallon and the 7781 glass that I've used is $10ish a yard at 60" wide. I did one headliner at 5 ply thick and it worked but 6 ply works better. It takes 11 yards to make one headliner. You might be able to make one using a lower cost weave or mat but because this is just flat and the number of plys is driven by the oz per yard of material the costs will all be similar.

 

Youre doing 6 plies of weave? Kind of overkill to replace a flimsy piece of eighth inch cardboard...lol

I was thinking 1 or 1.5 Oz mat, which is a lot cheaper but does require more finishing.

Resin is a lot more than it used to be. Damn. Used to get it for thirty a gallon at Lowes or 20 something online.

 

The first one I did was 5 ply of weave and it required the original center screws to be used or it would pop can down in the center. The 6 ply one doesn't seem to need the screws in the center which was my original goal. After I added the overhead consol the 5 ply headliner became just fine and I probably could have gone less but it's nice to have a headliner with a sturdy feel.

Looks like homedepot has a gallon of resin for $40. I think the last time I bought it I got it at west marine and I'm sure I paid more than it was worth. Polyester resin is still a lot better cost wise than epoxy resin. It does look like if I was smarter and planned ahead I could have saved quite a bit ordering the resin online.

I wonder if it would be flexible enough to do conform to the surrounding trim if it was one ply of weave, on layer of 0.090ish honeycomb core and then one ply of weave. That would give a nice solid feel and save quite a bit of $

 

You would run into problems getting a piece of honeycomb big enough I think. The honeycomb was still pretty expensive last time I tried to get some and shipping a bigger piece is expensive just like shipping a headliner.
But it is a great material for stuff like that.
I still think abs plastic would be perfect and cheaper... And with a vaccuum table you could just make little molds for speaker recesses or overhead consoles and offer them as options. Slip em on the table before vaccuum draw the heated abs down.

I had an old air hockey table once, someone told me with a powerful shop vac and one of those infrared heater lamps they use to heat car bodies in paint shops you can make your own cheap vaccuum table. If I had space I'd try it.

 

When my new shop was built, the drywall guys had a 4' wide roll of brown paper that they used to cover the floor so they didn't have to clean up the "mud" that they dripped when they did the ceiling. They left the roll behind. I bet you could find a roll like that at a paint supply store. It's not white, but it's still usable. I've used that roll for all kinds of things. Of course, for something like this, I realize one doesn't need to buy an entire roll. Maybe a local auto body shop will let you peel off a section of their masking paper in exchange for a six pack of beer.

 

This is a plug for buckin69broncos headliners. I bought one, and it's top notch!

 

The super can headliner is something like 50"x54" (not near my truck to be able to measure) but I do know both directions are over 48.

Anyone know if abs comes in 5' wide sheets? If it does that would be super easy. 1/16" would be plenty thick and you probably wouldn't have to heat it at all, just let the surround trim push it into place.

To do shapes in the abs you wouldn't even have to heat the whole sheet, you could make one mold for the shape you wanted and heat just locally and hold vacuum with a shopvac.

There have been several guys here that made the headliner with two prices of abs and joined in the middle with a thin strip. Abs plumbing glue "melts" the strip to the two halves. It does leave a line down the center though.

 

Thanks Bryan, how's the truck coming?

 

Appears it might be an issue getting a sheet of it big enough.


http://www.eplastics.com/m/mobile.html?type=lstnavv&name=ABS%20Textured%20Gen eral%20Purpose%20Sheet&catid=69

 

Weld the two sheets together without a trim strip (or a very thin strip), and then cover the whole lot in headlining material?

 

Buckin69bronco made a fiberglass headliner for me a few years back. We were able to meet up at a local swap meet, so shipping wasn't an issue.

I had to do a bit of trimming to make it fit, but that was expected as I had asked him to leave it a bit large.

I covered the fiberglass with upholstery vinyl using 3M spray on contact cement.

The fiberglass was laid up flat and I had no issues putting it in my truck.

Hope this helps.

 

I would think you could also sand and fill with body filler and paint.