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Headliner and Gauges

The channels for the door windlace was pretty dented (some of it dented by me) and rusted when I cut the top off years ago so I needed to replace it. I bought aftermarket channels, drilled some holes in them and clecko'ed them in place and then plug welded them to the cab. It was a pain but I did manage to get them welded in and then took and angle grinder and ground down the welds. I then tested to see how a small piece of the windlace slid around the channel after reading to do this before you install it and tweaked the channel it it hung up. I didn't install the windlace but I needed the channel in place to cut the headliner.

Moving on to the headliner. I bought a one-piece ABS headliner and really liked how it looked raw. I put it in place and marked it to trim around the channels. I actually left the channels fastened with cleckos so I could just slide the headliner behind them and refasten the channels on top of the headliner to make it easier to mark. Once it was marked I trimmed the headliner using a bandsaw (and did the final install on the channels).

With the headliner temp installed it was clear that the trim on the RH A-pillar and the rear LH trim was off. These were areas that came pre-trimmed so I either got the headliner rigged a bit crooked when I marked it or the part was trimmed incorrectly from the factory (or the whole 80 year old roof was tweaked along the way). Either way, it had to be fixed.

I did some internet sleuthing and read about ABS being pretty easy to bond (actually chemically melt)using an Acetone slurry. The bits I trimmed off were great for making a slurry but weren't big enough to make the extension....so I ordered some 1/16” thick ABS sheet from Ebay with what I thought was the same pattern. The pattern didn't match so I finally had to give up on leaving the headliner bare.

With the slurry at the consistency of a thick primer, I then bonded some ABS together, basically a butt-splice, to see how it held. It was pretty strong but if I bent it then it would crack along the bond. I didn't want that to happen later so I decided to grab some fiberglass weave that I had and bonded it across the splice on the backside of the headliner using the slurry as the adhesive. This worked out real nice but the splices are an eyesore. I ordered some black vinyl that is close to the seat upholstery that I will install over the ABS upon final installation to hide the splices.

I has also ordered the gauges for the truck. I went one that will work with GPS instead of messing with all the gears on the 700R4. I also really wanted a tach so this set meet all those requirements....except they hit the brake pedal and booster & support bracket....ugh. They don't look any larger than the stock gauges so I believed they would just bolt right in. I had to pull the bracket and cut it off and re-weld it so it mounted further forward on the under-dash. It used to picked up the bolts of the steering column support but I had to shorten it and add two dedicated bolts to clear. Once that was done the gauges fit right in. With the gauges and headliner in place, I went ahead and re-installed the seat to make sure it fit properly.
If I don't watch out, I just may get done with this project in the near future.