Cutting out and fitting a new headlining to a spitfire hardtop and the mistakes to avoid.

[Adrian Cooper]

I finished all the welding, prep and spraying of my hardtop last summer and I had the headlining material in stock (Supplied by our very own Pete Lewis) but it has taken me months to pluck up the courage to finish the job. Fabric is just not my thing.

Fortunately, my wife is a gifted dressmaker and she was able to offer some good advice and encouragement.

Firstly you will need some Dressmaker's Interfacing to make the pattern, some good contact adhesive (I used a spray can of the stuff), a white or black marker pen (contrasting colour to whatever colour of interfacing you buy) and as many clamps, clips and clothes pegs as you can find.

Place your hardtop upside down on a cushioned table and very carefully measure and mark the halfway points on the front edge and each of the stay bars. You can see from the pictures that I had glued some sound deadening material to the underside of the hardtop and I would recommend this, it does eliminate that characteristic 'clang' every time you close the doors.

Cut a piece of the interfacing slightly bigger than the area that you are starting with and position a straight edge of it along the centre line of the hardtop. Hold it in place with as many clips as you can and do your best to flatten out all the creases and folds. Use tape too, I wish I had. 

This was my first mistake, I used a very crumpled piece of interfacing and I found it difficult to get it to lay flat, I really should have tried harder because accuracy at this stage does save much time and frustration later on. Very carefully mark on the interfacing where it rests on the middle of the stay bar and round the edges of the hardtop. Note that you are only doing half of the hardtop, from the centre line to one edge and I made a pattern for each of the four panels in the same way. 

My second mistake was allowing generous extra material where the two panels meet at the door aperture (where the yellow clothes peg is in the above picture) My thinking was that it would be best to have too much material rather than too little. The better option would be to measure and mark it accurately. 

Once all the panels have been marked and carefully cut out you lay them onto the back of the headlining material, having first folded the material double.

This dressmakers trick gives you the complete shape from just a half pattern, just remember to line the centre line edge of the pattern with the folded edge of the material. Then mark around the patterns remembering to allow an extra 2 cm of 'seam allowance' along any edge that will be sewn to another piece and to allow an extra 2cm for the 'pockets' that the stay bars will go through. Now cut out the shapes being careful to keep the folded material from shifting as you cut, pinning the patterns through both thicknesses of material helps here.

At this stage I allowed even more spare material round the patterns, which was my third mistake. Once you have finished cutting you take out the pins, unfold the material and you should have four pieces like this.

Next you pin the pieces together, face down, so that you can sew along the joins and along the 'pockets'. 

My long-suffering wife took pity and did the sewing part for me. Next I slid the stay bars into the pockets and refitted the bars into the hardtop, starting with the front bar. This bar fits into two spring clips that hold it in position (you can see them in the first picture) but the other two are free floating to allow you to tension the headlining by pulling it towards the back window.

This was the first trial fit where I noticed that all the extra material that I had allowed was stopping the headlining from pulling taught where the stay bars meet the edge of the hardtop.  I had to take it off and resew the material at these points to take up some of the slack. I'm sorry that I forgot to take any more pictures after this point, but the glueing up was relatively easy, Just be careful to mask off anything that you don't want to be covered in glue if you are using spray glue. The eagle eyed will have noticed that the pattern for the rearmost panel ends short of completely surrounding the back window aperture, but the cut out panel does join up. This is because I couldn't decide which was best to do; there will have to be a cut and join under the window because the 3d nature of the hardtop shape means that you can't make this shape from one complete piece of fabric, there will always be too much material. However this is not a problem as the join is almost invisible under the window, and it was the way Triumph did it too. 

Refitting the rear window glass was by far the worst part of the job. New glass seals are unavailable but my 56 year old rubber seal for this window was just about usable with plenty of black gutter sealant  (I understand that the GT6 rear hatch glass seal is the same size and these are available). The front seal between the hardtop and windscreen rail was also unavailable but I made one from closed cell foam which seems to be fine. The trim rubbers and door glass seals are available and seem to be of reasonable quality. You might find, as I did on one side only, that the rubber seal sticks out too much and pushes the door glass outwards. I trimmed off some of the back of the seal and this solved the problem.

I can't claim that my headlining is perfect and I still have some creasing around the edges above the doors, but if you avoid my mistakes and are more careful in making the patterns there is no reason why you can't end up with a perfect result. Pete's material is top quality and very forgiving and stretchy. I hope this is useful for somebody and that you are encouraged to have a go. Please do ask if there is something that is not clear.

Adrian

Edited November 21, 2021 by Adrian Cooper
spelling correction, probably more I haven't spotted yet

[Pete Lewis]

nice to see a finished good result

pleased the liner is getting used I rescued it from the truck  factory closure 

well done    this will aid others into a bit of.................. dressmaking   Ha !

in our trim shop any wrinkles on things were given a blast of steam from a wand stuffed up inside 

a wallpaper steamer would do this well with a bit of bundy pipe attached 

Pete