Headlining

Here's an image of the three main headlining sections laid out on lounge floor.

The holes for the sunroof and interior lights were already precut. The hole for the interior mirror had to be cut before fitting though. Simple enough as behind the trim there is a precut triangle slot in the headlining board. 

Similarly, along the lengths of the joining cross sections were holes precut for the fir tree fasteners. Recommendation followed was to prepare them by poking them through with a sharp bradle.

On the rears of the headlining, various self adhesive packing was placed and locked down with masking tape. This is as per the original pieces. The rear headlining section also had the foam packers fitted.

Starting from the front, we fitted the new headlining pieces. Kids helped me as it is quite difficult to get them into position. Once in place, as can be seen in the image below, not all the new fir tree fastener holes in the headlining lined up with the original holes in the body frame.

Retrospectively really should have measured where the fir tree fastener holes on the new headlining sections were compared to the originals. Therefore ended up having to drill some new holes in the frame. However, would have ended up going this route rather than making new holes in the headlining. There would have been considerable risk of damaging/tearing the new headlining, too  much weakening of the headlining board as well as the challenge of matching the holes between the various sections. Note hat the final drill size used was 6mm. 

The image below shows the final result but hides the fact that there was a couple of hours of difficult manoeuvring of headlining boards and lining up/drilling of holes. Certainly get a laugh from the kids when writhing in pain due to kneeling on the seat belt mount on the rear load section. Got to love 'em.

As can be seen, all the fir tree fasteners fitted snug. This was achieved by hammering them in with the assistance of a section of wooden pole. Sun visors were fitted and the interior light cables pulled through. A lesson learned would be that if doing this again, suggest fitting the front then rear sections followed lastly by the middle section.

Then came to the fitting of the rear interior light. This is where the fun then started. Firstly, the cut out in the headlining needed to be shaved back slightly for the light fitting. No big deal, it's a Land Rover so a fettle is always required. However, secondly and more painfully, the cable which needs to come in from the back rear corner cut out of the metal plate was 1 cm too short to reach the connector of the light fitting. With the cable being too short, the light fitting would not mount properly. So with saddened heart, only one thing to do. All the fir tree fasteners were removed from the middle headlining section allowing it to be pulled out again. Removing one piece of masking tape on the roof then allowed the cable to reach properly, albeit only freeing up just the 1 cm needed. Once the headlining was all back in place, the light could be fitted properly. One morning disappeared! 

However, did not have enough fir tree fasteners for the refit. They were destroyed in the removal process. Have now ordered a bundle more.

The next task was to fit the sunroof finishing trim. This was a really painful exercise too. The continuous lug on the rubber trim had to latch behind a channel in the aluminium frame of the sunroof mount. Only with some WD40 and endless aligning and pressing would it go. Worked my way from the middle rear to the sides. Lined up the cut outs for the front sun roof hinges and finished with the front corners. Reckon this task took the best part of two hours including rests for my thumbs to recover.

However, as the image below shows, looks the business.

However, after the refit, seems the sun visors now interfere with the rear view mirror when moving up and down. Currently soliciting feedback to double check the orientation and mounting.

Posted a topic on forums.lr4x4.com and realised that the sun visors need to be swapped and inverted. Fitted now correctly as per image below.