The Lotus Grand Tourers

Hello from NZ

I have just bought a very tired excel se and am starting to spend more than I should on it..The fella who is looking at replacing the headlining is telling me the existing headlining is glued to either a fiberglass or cardboard backing that has come away from the roof..is this so and is there not a way of gluing the foam cloth directly to the roof ?

thanks from kiwiland

He lied, the foam headlining is glued directly to the roof, or should be, in most cases the foam succumbs to heat exhaustion and falls apart.

The foam headlning, is stuck to the aluminium foil, which is stuck to the roof, presumably for radio reception or suppression.

The most difficult bit of the whole operation is removing the powdered foam, thats only half attached to the roof. cover all the seats and interior in a cheap plasic decorstor's sheet, rup and scrape it all off, fold up the sheet, chuck away. Otherwise the powder gets everywhere.

The rest is fairly simple and documented elsewhere.

here is a pic of what happens....

http://www.lotus-register.com/garage/ga ... 44&MID=593

Hi Rusty, in case it is unclear, the headlining material is two layers of fabric with foam in between. Oz's picture shows what happens when the foam in the sandwich gives up as Terry says. The backing fabric needs to be peeled off the roof (or trim panel), at which point the crumbled foam will go everywhere. The front roof section has the foil groundplane for the aerial glued to it, onto which the material is glued. The rear section should be glued directly to the roof. Hope this helps, Chris

personally, i split the old fabric into on purpose, used the "good" interior layer, as template, then very carefully ripped off the backing after, whilst hoovering inbetween and during removal, and ended up with no noticable left over debris

hope that helps...

Thanks to all who have given help...after taking off rear roof head lining as it was really drooping down I find that one of the previous owners used cardboard then the foam backed fabric...but wait for it HE/SHE USED DOUBLE SIDED TAPE TO SUPPORT THE CARDBOARD TO THE UNDERSIDE OF ROOF....AND YES ONLY ONE STRIP THROUGH THE CENTER. some people, just makes me worried what else I am going to find ??

again thanks , think I will let an expert do the job for me.

Darrell