Now, cover the entire back side of one door panel piece with glue using the 2 inch paint brush and let it set for 15 minutes. Do the same on the body where this piece will go, 15 minutes.

Come back and have that heat gun / hair dryer ready. Take your driver and insert the heavy plastic over the sharp toothed clamps along the door pillar. When doing this, pull the headliner material away from it’s intended area, you will see how that plastic is inserted. Pull the piece as high as it will go also, so there is no gap at the top of the door pillar.

Okay, not gently tap those clamps shut with your helper holding the glued piece towards the middle of the cabin. Go from the top to the bottom, not moving the piece. Now tightly pull the liner towards to back window, allowing it to adhere to the body.

Fun, right? Now take the heat gun and apply heat to the piece a little at a time to adjust wrinkles. Use the gun to make tight forms and stretch that liner like taffy. Heat, stretch, heat again, stretch; you get my drift? Work small areas and try not to get the headliner material too hot.

When you have come to areas with corners, you will need to cut out many slits to allow for a smooth fit. This is mainly done in the window and side panel areas. Make sure you leave enough room to roll the material up into the window channels. Good times, Good times…

Once satisfied, move on to the other side.

If you are looking at making this a two day project, you may stop here and continue to the next section tomorrow.

5. Install The Main Piece

Now that you have some experience with working with headliner material and heat guns, you can use it to apply the Main Piece. This large piece is perorated (as all will be from here on out), runs from the windshield all the way back to the rear window, with the rear wings cover a vast section in the back.

Flip the main piece over on a clean surface and look for the headliner bow channels. Cut the end off (like 1/2 inch) of each one of these channels with your scissors. As memory serves, the bows go through the channels, the two shorter ones in the front. Put on the bow caps (onto the end of the bows, duh?).

Now paint a liberal coat of glue to the parameter of the Main Piece and let that tack up for a few minutes. Bunch the whole thing up so the headliner bow rods are adjacent to each other and move into the car with the Main Piece. You’ll have to cock the bunch of rods crooked at first into the headliner bow channels on each side of the car. Once in, straighten the whole thing out so the headliner bow rods lie straight across from each other. Don’t worry about rod placement yet, just as long as they are all in there.

This is critical, center the whole piece so it is even on both sides, dead even. Once ensured you are all lined up, pull the front of the Main Piece out of the front of the windshield and press down against the frame. Don’t do the whole front, just tack down enough so the piece does not move around.

Locate the 3rd headliner bow rod. Pull it evenly so it about 3 inches past the door pillar. Pull firmly and feed the sides forward of that 3rd rod into the longer clamps at the top of the door channel. Once both sides are lined up and fed into the channels, tap them shut with a hammer. Work the piece around the Door Pillar pieces you installed previously. Make cuts and folds that look nice.

Now stretch the headliner towards the front door pillars, tacking it down in the corners where the sun visors attach. Centered still? If not, rework.

Moving to the rear of the car, stretch and attach the rear wings onto the contour of the edge of the rear window. Tack down also to the rear wheel well crease, pulling tightly. You don’t want to glue down the middle here, like mine, it looks bad. Heat, stretch, heat, stretch, again, again until you get it right. Take your time.

You’re going to have to cut the slits again, like mad, in this piece to get it around the window sills. Remember, cut these really long so you have a good bond between the body and the headliner. Move to the front of the car and work the windshield as you did the rear window.

Once satisfied, move on.

6. Install The Side Window Sills

The rest is a breeze. Apply a liberal coat of glue to the back on one of the Side Window Sill pieces and allow to tack for a few minutes. Glue them to the bottom of the side windows, about 2 inches away from the end of the door pillar. Center them up and apply heat to stretch and smooth them out. Leave plenty of material top and bottom. Cut the slits again into the window and side panel areas, leaving them long.

7. Install The Rear Piece

Okay, almost done. Take the Rear Piece and apply a liberal amount of glue, allowing it to tack. Install the piece high enough where the corner (round the half moon) overlaps both Main Piece wings already glued into the rear window pane in step #5. Press all that down, smooth it and heat it with the heat gun. Form and mold it in good and tight, especially around the bottom of the rear window sill. Cut the infamous slits into the top of the piece (leaving them long) and form around the rear window area. Tuck the bottom into the channel between the half moon and the rear firewall with your driver. Yes, carpet does go here later, but this is still a necessary piece to make it look proper.

8. Go Back Over The Job

Do you see areas you could have done better? Perhaps you need another headliner kit because you miffed the first one so bad, like me. They are about $75, so this is not a cheap mistake.

Go over the “rough” areas again with the heat gun. Try to smooth it out, take your time, and apply plenty of heat, that crease will work itself out eventually.

Now trim off you excess material and you’re done.

So we all had a jolly good time putting that in, right? Well, kick back, for better or worse, the headliner is installed…

The post Installing The TMI Headliner (Part 2) appeared first on Insanely Volkswagen.

Okay, the time has come. The interior is shot and down-right manky. Holes everywhere, pieces of headliner crumbling off due to age, parts missing even?

Yup, that’s two “before” shots of my back seat area. Just terrible, and I have to look at that through my rear view mirror.

This is the (my) most dreaded task on the car, it requires patience and acute attention to detail. Your hands are going to get sticky (and therefore dirty), your back will ache and your family might learn some new, unwelcome vocabulary. And this is the “easy install kit” even. Ready?

1. Preparing Yourself and The Car

Okay, right off the bat, this is going to take 4-8 hours pending your experience. It took me 6 1/2 hours and two headliner kits to get it, well, better then the pictures above. Let’s get our stuff together:

• Upholstery Glue – I used a can from JBugs (VW Headliner Glue, Code: Quart-Can, about $10) that came with my kit.
• Headliner Kit – This arrives in a long box.
• Sharp Scissors
• The 6 Headliner Bows – Pull these out of the old headliner.
• New Headliner Caps
• Utility Knife
• Heat Gun – Hair dryer will also work, it has to blow hot.
• 2″ Paint Brush
• A Helper
• A clean space – Large enough to lay out the main piece.
• Small Screwdriver

Now, lets prepare the car. This procedure is better done after the body has been painted, and the seats, carpet, side panels and windows (all windows but the door) are still out of the car. Yes, the Seats, Side Panels, Carpet and Windows (even the windshield) have to be removed before proceeding. You will also need to remove EVERYTHING that attaches through the headliner to the body. These include Seat Belts, Rear View Mirror, The Sun Visors, The Dome Light, The Rear Vent Plastic, The Rear Defog wires, and those white rubber seat back stops above the rear wheel wells. Whew…

Done? Good, go ahead and clean all that up. See my other How To’s for the restoration of those items. Now tear out that old headliner. Easy “Big Cougar”, don’t go nuts; try to remove it in one piece. The Door Pillar sides are held in by many short clamps with very sharp teeth. You’ll have to peel back the Door Pillar piece and take your screw driver and pry these open; try not to break any off in the process. Where the Main Piece meets the doors are also longer clamps without sharp edges that require “widening” with your driver.

Remove the carcass from the cabin and locate the 5 or 6 (pending your year, I had 6) headliner bows. These are simply large gauge wire in two sizes; the smaller ones go to the front and the four longer ones go to the rear. Note the order you pulled them, for my memory might not serve me as well as I thought. Label them even, I did.

Take a digital camera and record where stuff went into the top bow, dome light area, rear vent, defog wires, and rear set rests. This will come in handy later.

2. Prepare The Headliner

Take the headliner out of it’s box and unfurl it on a clean flat surface. You might want to leave it out like this overnight until all of the pieces have flatted. The Door Pillar pieces are particularly difficult because of the way they were packaged – the hard rubber part never straightens out. We will take care of that in the channel with the sharp teeth later.

Once flat, fit the pieces into the cabin where they will go. Familiarize yourself with particular interest to the rear headliner wings that come down between the side and rear windows. Take note of how the Door Pillar pieces will fit at the bottom between the side panels and door pillar. Got it? Good, moving on…

3. Install The Headliner Padding

I splurged for the headliner padding kit from JBugs, and was disappointed in it’s quality. On future installs, I will make my own from carpet padding bought at a local hardware store.

You will need thinner material for the rear wings and window, using thicker material for the ceiling and the half moon under the rear window.

I used 3M 80 Spray Glue to glue in the padding pieces. I also remember holding the ceiling piece in for a while until it set.

The post Installing The TMI Headliner (Part 1) appeared first on Insanely Volkswagen.

Next we install the center piece. We will also cover seat release mechanisms, although I recommend doing that after the glue has dried overnight. This piece requires critical cuts around the handbrake and seat release levers. Fit the piece so that the rail is lined up on the driver’s side. Take your Sharpie and mark a dot in the middle and ends of the handbrake area as best as you can. Cut a slit along those three dots and re-fit the carpet, cutting out a small trapezoid (wide end towards the rear) where the handbrake is. Keep fitting and refitting the carpet making the cuts as smalls as possible. Once you have it, line it up on the passenger side seat rail and measure the distance between the rails to see how this will lay.

Now, find the top of the seat release control box on each side of the hump and mark the corner with your Sharpie. Cut those out a little at a time, staring with a slit and slowly opening that into a box. Overlap the top and bottom a little so the cup will bite onto the carpet and look clean. This is difficult, so take your time.

Once satisfied, glue it in. Get the front over the seat release levers first, then over the handbrake. Line up the front and the back using the front line and back lines along with both seat rails. I cut slits again on the ends of the rails to ensure a good fit.

Moving on, I installed both of the floor pieces using 3M spray glue because the DAP does not adhere to the padding too well. I found out later to not apply DAP to the padding, but only to the carpet works fine also. I made slits on each seat rail and lined it up with the seat pillar. Repeat on passenger side.

Installing the Seat Rail Mechanism is easier by looking at the picture below. The short loop of the spring goes into the pillar hole and the long end onto the push-rod. Make sure you put the plastic box-cup on before hooking all that up or you will be doing it all again.

7. Installing the Main Piece

The main piece is the largest in the kit, with the rubber foot rest on the driver’s side. It requires cuts to get it around the pedal area, a lot of cuts! Fit it, cut small, fit it again. Make sure you have freed the accelerator cable, as the kit will cover that area up if left unattended. I also cut the hump area out a little for better fitting.

Since I did not have the passenger footrest plate, I had to make yet more cuts to modify the excess passenger side carpet to fit flat onto the floor. I used the excess to fill in the gap between Big Bertha and the header, which was not enough and had to use another piece.

Apply glue to the bare body parts and overlapped carpet areas. Do not apply glue to padding, it is just folly. Tack and press. Line it up well over the hump and make sure the sides are tucked in tightly.

Done? Done! Let all that dry then go back to do the accessories. I have not cut my gear shifter in yet, but just cut the hole with a utility knife, and all should be good to go.

The post How To Install The TMI Carpet Kit (Part 4) appeared first on Insanely Volkswagen.

Next we will focus on the door sills. On my ’73, it has the sills that include the rubber channels (yeah, most do). These channels have a lip that needs to GO OVER the channel. DO NOT ATTEMPT to bend the rubber around the channel, that would be ludicrous. Go ahead and fit the driver’s side piece in the channel and see how it lays into the pan. I made 1/2 inch slits on each end of the seat rail to ensure proper fitting. No other cuts were required.

Take that all out, give it a haircut and apply the glue. Apply glue now to the body area and really goop it onto the excess, overlapped wing areas to ensure proper bonding. Press it all down tightly and let that dry overnight before cutting the heater channel. I will cover the channel install here, however, because it relates to the focus area.

Go ahead and hammer the channel closed by tapping it moderately with a body hammer and a block of wood. Do not strike the channel directly with the hammer, unless you like the dented door channel look.

Use a sharp utility knife and cut a slit right down the middle of the hole. Then extend that another inch past the hole towards the front of the car. Carefully cut the rest of it out and get the fray out of there. Install the Channel Vent by running the heater cable through it’s home.

Pull it through tight, then tighten the screw. Now line up the cable tab (located in the front inside of the excess 1 inch you cut out earlier) with the holes and screw that in. It’s difficult, so be patient. Put the other screw in and you’re done. Move onto the other side…

5. Installing the Rear Carpet Kit

Using your knowledge from the front so far, you now know the drill of applying the glue, so I am not going to get into that as much from here on out. Just remember, apply glue to the carpet then the body and allow 20 minutes to tack.

Next we will install the rear wheel wells. These are difficult to fit properly. It took me 30 minutes per side to figure it out. It does not quite fit snugly against the sides, but if you can get it as close as possible with less then 1 cm gap at the bottom, you’re doing pretty well. The side panels will cover that area nicely if the gap is not too wide. The ends will bend around and a cut is required to release the crease from that bottom corner in the back.

Glue that in once fitted and do the same for the other side. Make sure it looks exactly the same on each side when complete.

Moving on, we will install the giant rear piece. I lined the top curve to slightly over the window seal on the back window, then tucked in the corner directly below. Now, carefully bend the carpet back onto the crease, not moving it thus loosing your line-up. Take your Sharpie and mark a straight line along the crease. Take out the carpet, give it a haircut, glue it from the bottom to your line, then glue the bottom of the body area where that will go.

Line the carpet up again and glue the bottom of the piece in. fold the remainder over and place the glue can on top. Glue the body (on the case) and the upholstery where the carpet goes up the wall, then glue the carpet, tack and press in and smooth. Tuck the remainder of the bottom into the channel. Okay, now you are pretty much done with the rear, good job.

The post How To Install The TMI Carpet Kit (Part 3) appeared first on Insanely Volkswagen.

From here on out, every cut counts. It is very hard to recover from mistakes, and even if others do not notice, you know that flaw is there. Take your time, each piece took me about 40 minutes to 1 hour to install.

You will be using the DAP Weldwood contact cement to cement this in. The fumes are very strong, so vent your workspace. I also used a 2 inch brush to apply the glue to both the back of the carpet and the body itself. Each piece requires about 20 minutes to tack. Don’t worry, you will have plenty of time to put down, mold, pull up, put down again (and again and again). Let each piece dry for another 40 minutes, but in the way that I install these, you will not be standing on a freshly glued piece. I used 1 gallon of DAP on this project.

Fit the front driver’s wing first. Fit it before you glue it and make sure you know how it orients into the body line at the top of it’s area. I did not cut out the heater tube access hole, oh well… I made no cuts to either wing. Set it onto your table and cut the fray off.

Now, don’t fear the reaper and apply plenty of glue to both the back of the wing, ensuing that you really get it over the edge and into the creases. It should be wet when done. Now do the same to the body, but don’t go as crazy with the glue as you did with the carpet. Follow the black lines I have outlined as body lines, which you should note are very obvious when fitting the carpet. Let that tack for 20 minutes.

Come back and install the wing, fitting it around the heater channel cable in the front so the cable is very close to the floor. Place, pull, place tuck, pull back, place, tuck. Take your time, it will smooth out fairly nicely. Jam that top corner under the dash as far as it will go without exceeding the body line. It took me 20 minutes to place the piece and get it to lay properly.

Do the same for the passenger side wing, then move onto the header.

The header requires some cuts and is very hard to get in because of how you need to contort your body to install. Get it around the pedals and get your Sharpie. Line the top up into the body line and even it out end to end. Should have a little space on each end, unfortunately. Mark the areas as best as you can and cut the carpet away from all of the pedal assembly and it’s guts. Ensure that the accelerator cable is accessible. Take out and make your first cuts, then re-install and measure again. You will repeat this process until it fits to your satisfaction.

Now glue that piece in, allowing 20 minutes to tack, gluing both the back of the carpet and body area it will go onto. This took me 40 minutes to place and was probably the hardest part of this project.

The post How To Install The TMI Carpet Kit (Part 2) appeared first on Insanely Volkswagen.

• Cost Front 9pc $78 / part#34-F1214-607
• Cost Rear 5pc $60 / part#34-R1103-607
• No pre-cut holes
• Need Strong Adhesive
• Need Very Sharp Scissors
• Padding does not hurt, they sell the kits
• Is over length in many pieces, so more cutting is required
• Looks like it will not fit, at first

Okay, let’s move onto installing the carpet.

1. Preparation

You’re going to need some space, a sharp pair of scissors, a sharp utility knife, a Sharpie marker and strong contact cement. Make sure the area has proper ventilation, less you want to ride the dragon during the procedure. If not, move the family and neighbors out and use a respirator.

I used DAP Weldwood in the Red can (original formula). I tried the DAP in the Green can while installing the headliner and was less then satisfied with it’s bonding ability. The Red stuff is really thick and tacks in 15-20 minutes, pending your weather. That’s perfect for what we are doing here.

2. Preparing the Car

Make sure your floor is really clean before attempting to glue stuff to it. You really don’t want dirt or car parts under there.

Also, ensure that all of your heater cables are routed in a way that seems to lay naturally onto the floor. This is critical because the carpet (or padding) will glue them into weird positions that will be hard to sort out down the road.

I added B-Flat brand sound deadener to the rear engine facing body panels. This should prevent the chatter from entering the cabin. This stuff is much cheaper then DynoMat and gives the same effect. I bought 2 25 ft. rolls a few years back and am still using it, even after this project. Good stuff!

If you have freshly painted the pans and body of your Beetle, you might want to scuff the carpet surfaces with steel wool. It roughs up the surface and provides a better surface to adhere to. I made my own carpet padding by using the large front piece folded in half, tracing that out onto the padding with a Sharpie. That was glued down using 3M 70 Spray Glue with a good coating on both the pad and the floor. Allow time to tack, but not too much with the spray glue. Give it 2 minutes or sooner.

The post How To Install The TMI Carpet Kit (Part 1) appeared first on Insanely Volkswagen.