Jaguar Repair: sliding roof, vanden plas, metal screws

Question
I have a 1984 xj6 vanden plas I replaced the head liner with the foam backed headliner material and also the sliding roof now I am having the top of the sliding roof get scratched when it opens and closes I took it to a sun roof place and they tell me that everything is in right so why would it be getting scratched I am at a loss on this it has been alot of work it looks very nice inside but there is one spot in the middle that is getting scratched

Answer
Hi Don,

The sun roof liner was not foam backed originally. It was the same material but without the foam on the back. It was glued to the factory canvas that was stretched across the sun roof. I have covered several and tried different things to get them to look good. If the factory canvas backing is good I take the foam backed material that is used to cover the fiber board headliner and I sprayed it with carb cleaner which does not harm the material but does loosed the glue holding the foam to the cloth. I then peel off the foam and after the carb cleaner dries I spray the canvas with 3M spray contact glue and a light coat on the back of the new cloth but from a distance so as not to "wet" the cloth. I destroyed one cloth by spraying too close and wetting it which soaked through the cloth and destroyed it. Let the glue dry on both surfaces before making them contact each other.

Take a scrap of the headliner material and a piece of regular cloth or canvas if you have any and experiment to see what I am talking about.

I also had to re-do my own XJ-6 and I did something different. My factory canvas was bad so I just took a piece of aluminum flashing for a house roof and cut it to fit the under side of the lower sun roof plate and secured it with short metal screws and thus I had a firm inner roof and I just used contact 3M to glue the headliner material with the foam backing still on it since the aluminum plate was higher than the original canvas, the foam backed material never came in contact with anything when it is opened.

The factory canvas would sag a little in damp weather and tighten up in dry weather so I never liked that design anyway.

That is the best I can tell you as I am not a trim man, I just got roped into doing several headliners.

Howard