82J Headliner

[Matt M]

I am looking to refurbish my interior this spring. Getting an idea of what is involved. I plan on repairing some of the plastic panels and replacing a couple others that are beyond repair. The original plastics are yellowed, I plan on spraying them with SEM paint. My unknown now is the headliner. How hard is it to remove? I am concerned because a few of the big shops mention restore in place. If I did keep it up I could spray it, but it would be a pain. I have seen a bunch covered in fabric. Is this usually done in place?
 

Matt

[Marauder]

I am looking to refurbish my interior this spring. Getting an idea of what is involved. I plan on repairing some of the plastic panels and replacing a couple others that are beyond repair. The original plastics are yellowed, I plan on spraying them with SEM paint. My unknown now is the headliner. How hard is it to remove? I am concerned because a few of the big shops mention restore in place. If I did keep it up I could spray it, but it would be a pain. I have seen a bunch covered in fabric. Is this usually done in place?  

Matt

 

Matt - I had my entire interior out to install the Spatial Design's lower panels. Removing the top piece is not that difficult. And you certainly don't want to be spraying paint inside of your interior. In order to get the SEM stuff to work correctly, you will need to prep it with a cleaner and a pre-paint prep material. I would just pull it and paint it with the rest of the interior components. One issue you will encounter is dealing with the cracks you will find. Bruce Jaeger's process is to repair the broken pieces, prep and paint. Unfortunately you are dealing with 40 year old plastic. It's going to crack more. I am considering pulling mine and wrapping it with Ultra Leather.  You will probably need to deal with cracks like these.

 

 

The reason they probably don’t want to remove it is because they know they will most likely introduce more cracking.

 

 

[Oldguy]

Matt, I used Bruce Jaeger's kit (https://www.jaegeraviation.com/) to repair the panels in my '84 J that were cracked and even some with holes in them. The only one I could not repair was the one where a large piece from the outside edge was gone before I bought my plane. And like  you , I am using the SEM paint as they go back in the plane. Following the SEM instructions about cleaning and prepping the parts has made a world of difference in the results. I read some website entries on a site dealing with painting plastic parts where there were some negative comments about the results using SEM. Others noted the results were fine if you followed the directions to the letter.

Painting of the headliner can be done in the plane, with a lot of plastic sheeting and Frog tape. I chose to do it out off the plane since it was the piece I had to replace. I am not sure about covering it with fabric or leather - we usually hear about that happening when it is sent off to someone to do that for all of the panels.

 

[Matt M]

24 minutes ago, Oldguy said:

Matt, I used Bruce Jaeger's kit (https://www.jaegeraviation.com/) to repair the panels in my '84 J that were cracked and even some with holes in them. The only one I could not repair was the one where a large piece from the outside edge was gone before I bought my plane. And like  you , I am using the SEM paint as they go back in the plane. Following the SEM instructions about cleaning and prepping the parts has made a world of difference in the results. I read some website entries on a site dealing with painting plastic parts where there were some negative comments about the results using SEM. Others noted the results were fine if you followed the directions to the letter.

Painting of the headliner can be done in the plane, with a lot of plastic sheeting and Frog tape. I chose to do it out off the plane since it was the piece I had to replace. I am not sure about covering it with fabric or leather - we usually hear about that happening when it is sent off to someone to do that for all of the panels.

 

What was involved with removing the headliner? I know there are several hoses that run to the eyeball vents. Is it just removing some screws and it comes down? I would prefer to take it out. I was just concerned that it would be very difficult? Especially since a few of the big shops said they restore in place.

[LANCECASPER]

4 hours ago, Matt M said:

What was involved with removing the headliner? I know there are several hoses that run to the eyeball vents. Is it just removing some screws and it comes down? I would prefer to take it out. I was just concerned that it would be very difficult? Especially since a few of the big shops said they restore in place.

Hector at Aero Comfort does more Mooney interiors than anyone and the pieces get pulled out - unless you are a contortionist I can’t imagine how doing it in place would be easier.  I am local to him so I pulled my interior and brought it to him. He covered it in ultra leather and I re-installled it.

[Marauder]

What was involved with removing the headliner? I know there are several hoses that run to the eyeball vents. Is it just removing some screws and it comes down? I would prefer to take it out. I was just concerned that it would be very difficult? Especially since a few of the big shops said they restore in place.

Lots of screws and you need to remove the side window panes and it may be overlapped with the front window treatment. It's not a difficult process but can be time consuming as you want to make sure you track where the parts were removed (i.e. baggies). 

 

[Matt M]

17 minutes ago, Marauder said:

Lots of screws and you need to remove the side window panes and it may be overlapped with the front window treatment. It's not a difficult process but can be time consuming as you want to make sure you track where the parts were removed (i.e. baggies). 

 

I see you have an F model. Does anyone know if the J headliner with the eye vents is different to remove? I am leaning toward taking it off and bringing it to an auto upholstery shop and have them cover it in AirTex headliner material. 

[Oldguy]

1 hour ago, Matt M said:

I see you have an F model. Does anyone know if the J headliner with the eye vents is different to remove? I am leaning toward taking it off and bringing it to an auto upholstery shop and have them cover it in AirTex headliner material. 

Matt, here is what mine looked like after putting it back in the plane. There are a couple of wiring harnesses to disconnect, vent tubes to disconnect as well as - for my year - the control to open the vents.

In the picture you can see the tubes coming from the rear. BE AWARE - there may also be screws connecting the front headliner plastic piece to the rear piece which must be removed before attempting to remove the front. Then there is also the visors to detach, all the little stinking screws, and the trim piece keeping the headliner from actually rubbing against the front windscreen. And go ahead and plan on replacing most if not all of the screws. The benefit of using Bruce Jaeger's kit is he supplies you with color matching screws for gray or beige colored plastic.

And to second @Marauder's comment - lots of baggies with painters tape and a Sharpie. Put the screws in the baggie, put a piece of tape on it, and write on the tape where they go.

 

[PT20J]

I used SEM on my previous M20J and it held up very well. I plan to do my current interior this winter/spring. My IA used to be an automotive paint guy and he believes that SEM is the best product for plastic, so I'm going to use that again. The interior panels are ABS plastic. Mooney used pretty thin sheets to start with and the vacuum forming process causes additional thinning at each radius which is why they often crack there. I've had good success taking the thinnest fiberglass cloth I can find and laying it up in three layers on the back side with ABS cement (or you can melt Legos in MEK or acetone -- or buy a kit from Plane Plastics with ABS bits and a small paint can to melt). If you have a plastic store around, you can also buy a small piece of ABS sheet to cut up to make patches to glue on the backside to reinforce flat areas.

Skip

[DonMuncy]

Has anyone here did the Ultra Leather thing themselves. Is it put on with contact cement? Does it stretch around the various curves well?

[Andy95W]

2 hours ago, DonMuncy said:

Has anyone here did the Ultra Leather thing themselves. Is it put on with contact cement? Does it stretch around the various curves well?

I used it to cover the window frames and ABS plastic on my Aztec.  It works well on convex surfaces, not as well on concave surfaces like my 1964 M20C.  For my current airplane, I used headliner felt instead.

Contact cement worked very well.  The material doesn't really stretch as well as you'd hope, you'll end up cutting darts for every corner and pull the individual pieces around the corners.  I covered all of the window frames with 1/8" foam before covering with the Ultra Leather to promote a little more "give" to the material as I stretched it around the corners.

For window frames, I used 4 individual pieces, each individually applied, since the material won't stretch enough.  I sewed a hem on the horizontal pieces to make it appear that the whole cover was stitched together.

A lot of work, but worth it.  Sorry I don't have any pictures of my Aztec interior covered in Ultra Leather.

[mooneyflyfast]

I replaced the headliner on my J model with new panels from Plane Plastics. The material is thicker and stronger than original. I don't recall it being too expensive and my upholstery guy installed it.

[Gagarin]

I have 1982 M20J that had some cracks and faded paint on the headliner.  I fixed the cracks and holes with Marine Tex White and repainted the panel with spray paint without removing it. Once you mask the non painted areas it is easier than removing and reinstalling the panel.

[ArtVandelay]

I have 1982 M20J that had some cracks and faded paint on the headliner.  I fixed the cracks and holes with Marine Tex White and repainted the panel with spray paint without removing it. Once you mask the non painted areas it is easier than removing and reinstalling the panel.

You need to be careful...windows, instrument panel...it would not take much overspray to ruin them.


Tom

[Gagarin]

1 minute ago, ArtVandelay said:

You need to be careful...windows, instrument panel...it would not take much overspray to ruin them.


Tom

I used newspaper and tape to hold it in place. I spray in small bursts to insure no overspray. You can easily crack the panel taking it out.

[ArtVandelay]

I used newspaper and tape to hold it in place. I spray in small bursts to insure no overspray. You can easily crack the panel taking it out.

I’ve removed panels, understand the difficulty of removing them. I use Permatex Plastic Welder. Faster cure time and is designed for plastic repairs. Plus, doesn’t have “marine” in the name that automatically doubles the price. ;-)


Tom

[Gagarin]

1 minute ago, ArtVandelay said:

I’ve removed panels, understand the difficulty of removing them. I use Permatex Plastic Welder. Faster cure time and is designed for plastic repairs. Plus, doesn’t have “marine” in the name that automatically doubles the price. ;-)


Tom

With Marine Tex you can fill voids easily. Very handy for large cracks.

[jetdriven]

I repaired the panels on the backside with aircraft structural epoxy (like Aero poxy) and 7781 cloth. Both from aircraft spruce.  Two layers of glass. Sand the panel with 80 grit for good stick. You can even re-form it with a hair dryer for heat. 

[Igor_U]

17 hours ago, DonMuncy said:

Has anyone here did the Ultra Leather thing themselves. Is it put on with contact cement? Does it stretch around the various curves well?

I've used Ultra Leather on some interior panels (window frames) years ago, when converted 2 aft F windows to J style single window. At the same time I restored all plastic with SEM paint and redid the headliner with vinyl and foam.

It wasn't difficult but as Andy95W  mentioned, ultra leather is not that stretchable to cover all complex surfaces. Window frame had to be done with 4 separate pieces with diagonal cut at the joint and it was sawn together with double stitching. My wife did that and it came out great. All that was glued using 3M adhesive and 12 years after still holds great. Job might take some time depending of how much repair you had to do on the panels but overall not too bad. I did buy two new interior panels (Door and lower pilot side panel) and used a gray Ultraleather for trim piece. I have no picture on my phone to show you but hopefully I can get some in few days.

good luck

 

[Marauder]

Anyone know what AeroComfort uses to cover plastics?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro