body work buick century

[michael wittig]

i have a 1990 buick century that needs its header panel changed.
how difficult will it be?

[NakedDancer]

Do you mean the head liner?

[NakedDancer]

If you ment headliner (least thats what I call it) then: I did my headliner myself and It wasn't that bad. It all depends on how much time and money you want to spend. I have heard of some people (on this site) talking about getting trunk carpet from pepboys or a simular auto store and glueing it to the roof. My headliner was glued to a fiberboard so I took all the trim off from the top of the doors, around the top of the front and rear windows, took down the headlamp and sun visors, let the front seats all the way back and pulled it out of the car throught the front passanger side door. I cleaned off all the left over gunk and fabric (all that was falling) then I went and bought a queen size blanket from Walmart of near the same color and sewed it on the headboard. Then I took the two panels from the back window that had the same headliner fabric on them, removed them, cleaned them and sewed the leftover blanket on to them (had to drill some holes: hard plastic). I took about 4 hours to do the sewing while I watched tv. I think you can get some spray on glue, But I have never had luck with that: it always came back off. As for the sewing I went six inches apart between places I sewed (with fishing line) and when I went to the next line I just moved down 6 inchis over and three inches off set from the last line (a diamond pattern when your done). My interior was blue so you don't even notice the fishing line. If you choose this path I would and did, tie off each place I sewed to prevent one break from causing unraveling. I was also generious on how many time I crossed each spot to help with the integrety. That was all last summer, not wind tested, but no problems yet.

[jibbijib]

He means the apparatus that holds the headlights. Take out the headlights first. There should be bolts on each fender of the car behind the header panel. these will probably be hard to reach. Undo those and have a friend with you to pull the header panel off. It can be a bitch. The installation is the reverse. I'll check on my car to get the exact locations of the bolts. There might be bolts in behind the lights as well. It's a pretty easy task. Hope that helps.

[jibbijib]

Ok, i found the bolts. There are four on each side around the headlights. they are on the back of the header panel. they are 10 mm nuts. take those off and pull. Should come off easily. Probably have to remove the peices on top of the rad sattle. There you go