Yesterday, I finally started my headliner replacement. I've always heard how fragile the sunroof drain nipples are. But I've fortunately never experienced a leak. Lo and behold, after pulling the headliner out the back, I walked back over to my driver's side and the front left tube was hanging. I guess we bumped it pulling the board out.

Planning to try this repair:
But now I'm wondering, since I've got the headliner out, should I go ahead and just preemptively repair the other three drains, given how flimsy they are? It's not like I'm going to be dropping the headliner often.

Anyone else done this? And is there a better repair method than a bushing and some JBW?

Thanks.

 

I use brass nipples with silicone. Yes, do the other three, and pull the sunroof motors and silicone the small gaps in the motor mount area. Pull all the pan screws one by one and silicone them as well. If you want to park it uphill in the rain, drill and tap the rear corners and add drains there too.

Good luck.

 

How straightforward is removal of the headliner? I saw a drop of water hit the passenger floor after washing the truck this weekend, and the fabric was sagging enough that the previous owner used 100 brass tacks to secure it. It looks, well, tacky, so I'd like to remove the fabric and treat it similar to the video. Looks like this guy's gone down to the waistline all the way around the truck. Any surprises or tips?

 

Not hard, but once it is out you better have a bigger vehicle if you are going to transport the headliner to a shop for recovering.

 

Put a radiant barrier above the headliner.
4'x10' roll of Reflectix is $25 on ebay.

 

 

This is on my list also, on an SE7 there are a few more parts, ducts, etc that I did not have on my SE. Not a bid deal, just use lots of baggies, take pictures and plan a few hours.

Anyone have any thoughts on a way to reduce road noise? less about heat, reflectix than noise. How thick of a padding could be installed? Any recommendations, cheaper than Dynamatt.

 

Reflectix will help with noise too, but you'll have to put it under the carpet also.
I've already done under the rear seats, fender wells, and cargo area. I will be doing the rest of the truck too.

 

Update: I went ahead and repaired the one drain line. I used basically the same steps as in the video. Instead of JB Weld, I used the Gorilla Glue version. Once the spacer set, I went ahead and applied some marine silicone all around it. Then cut the tube back to get rid of where the original nipple has expanded it, so that I'd get a snug fit. There was plenty of slack. I put a hose clamp on first, then applied more epoxy to the spacer and slid the tub on.

Now that it's all cured, I'm going to tighten the clamp on move on to the others.

As for the headliner itself...ooph, it did not go as well as planned. Not only is getting the material down smooth and without creases/lumps REALLY difficult without someone else holding the excess out of your way...but I also allowed myself to get frustrated and rushed. And so I wasn't paying attention to my overspray. Got a ton of spray adhesive on the good side of the material.

I was hoping that it'd scrape off after drying, but nope. Most of it isn't coming off. I'm so pissed, because it's not a bad job otherwise.

If anyone has any ideas for removing it without ruining the fabric, I'm all ears. When you look really closely, it all dried above the surface, in the the hairs of the fabric. I'm wondering if I could go over it with a razor something to surgically remove it all. Argh.

EDIT: Also managed to break a few pegs off the back of the map pockets when removing those little metal nuts. Still not sure how I'm going to repair that. They're so small. I might try epoxying thick paperclips into the remaining nubs and then using them to fasten to the backside of the headliner board.

 

This is really interesting. And I'm definitely open to it if it make a big difference. Can you add more about your experience doing this?

Thanks!