New Headliner

I had a chance to work on the headliner this weekend.  I started off by pulling down the remainder of the fiberglass insulation that was still clinging to the roof steel.  The good part is that it came down perfectly using the shop vac.  All I needed to do was slide the end of the hose over the glass remains and they broke off and sucked right up at the same time.  Not too bad. 

Next I sprayed some 3M Super 90 adhesive on the roof steel and onto the back of the 3M Thinsulate insulation I was to install.  I Waited a little for the adhesive to get tacky, then sprayed both surfaces again because it wouldn’t stick, and then pushed the insulation up to the steel.  It worked great.

Next I laid the original (floppy) headliner pieces onto the back of my new pieces of FRP I got from Lowes and traced out the shapes.  I then cut all the pieces and lightly sanded the edges.  Turns out the FRP stands for Fiber Reinforced Plastic, It also turns out that the word Fiber, in this case stands, for fiberglass.  This makes for an itchy job and it also destroyed my saber saw blade.  I was able to cut all three panels with one blade, but that’s the end of it.
I cleaned up the show surfaces of the aluminum connectors/trim strips with 0000 steel wool, they polished up nicely and look like new.  All that was left then was to “pop” the panels into the bus.  Everything went well, however, I needed to remove and trim the center piece a bit.

Job complete.  All together, it took about 3 hours to do the whole thing.  The only reason it went that fast was because the bus interior was completely removed.  It would, of course, take longer if I had to include cabinet removal as well.  Next project is to attach a piece of the FRP to the bottom side of the "head knocker" overhead cabinet.