<VV> Cleaning Headliners

[henry kaczmarek]

Dennis

When my father in law passed away, I inherited his 87 Mercury Grand Marquis. 
He and my mother in law were both Chain cigarette smokers, and both were 
also hexed by "drafts".  So the windows in the car were almost never open, 
and there was brown tobacco tar coatings on not only the headliner but on 
the rest of the upholstery (dark red velour) as well.  YUK--- a non-smoker 
(as I had been for 2 years at the time) sat down in the car and my eyes 
would immediately start to water, it was just terrible.

When I got the car back to Va Beach, I contacted one of my regular Western 
Auto customers, who owned an auto trim shop, and asked him how much for a 
new headliner (figured I'd start there).  After he told me, I had him look 
at the car and perhaps offer a suggestion.   He did.

He recommended sudsing ammonia, available at your local grocery store (at 
least east of the mississippi),  and told me to apply it with paper towels, 
and it would take the nicotine/tar coating off the cloth.  I had nothing to 
lose, so I tried it.  Worked like a charm. Took a few rolls of paper towels, 
and a bunch of time, but the headliner was clean as new, and didn't smell 
like an ashtray OR the ammonia--which I was concerned about.  Smelled pretty 
good. Worked well on the seats and carpet as well, finished up with an 
extractor shampooing.  I was afraid that the ammonia would take some of the 
color out of the red headliner, but it didn't.  Left it in showroom new 
color and condition. The car was 7 years old at the time.

There will be those who have to come on to denigrate this suggestion, but 
since I don't read those messages, I wonder why they bother.

Something you might want to try--HTH

Hank
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dennis & Debbie Pleau" <ddpleau at earthlink.net>
To: <virtualvairs at corvair.org>
Sent: Friday, March 18, 2005 8:36 PM
Subject: <VV> Cleaning Headliners


>A while back there was a tip on the VVs about cleaning headliners.  I'm 
>talking about the discoloration where a white top meets the windlace on the 
>edges.  Anyone have the tech tip stashed or have a good way of cleaning 
>short of replacing the headliner.
>
> Dennis
>
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