So a couple months ago I decided to pull my headliner out and do a little custom work to it. I always loved the diamond quilted look on the headliner of the early Vanquish and I wanted to do something like that and have it look as close to OEM as possible. I really like what Karl did with the diamond accents to his Vantage and my plan is to add a few more touches like that in the near future as well to compliment the headliner.

The first challenge was getting the exact matching Alcantara.. but once I located that it was just a whole lot of patience getting the headliner out and off to the upholstery shop and reinstating without damaging anything.

I wound up getting a bit carried away in the process though and decided to go ahead and do a good thorough cleaning and conditioning of the entire interior while I was at it.

I'll post some pictures of that soon too with a little write up. I removed both front and rear seats as well as basically every interior panel in the car. It was really a fun project and allowed me to address some of the troublesome rattles I've been battling for some time as well as give the car a really good cleaning that could never be done at any other time. A lot was learned along the way..

 

Beautiful

 

Great job! How hard was it to remove the headliner? How did you approach the problem? Did you just start pulling panels or something?

 

Thanks Karl. I really liked what you did with your inner door cards and arm rest.. Next on my list.

Bleen, I started by searching this and other forums for some information on removing the headliner and thanks to guys (like Karl), guys like me can get the info needed to take on something like this. It was easier than I thought actually but definitely took some nerve because most of these interior pieces are just held in with plastic push fasteners that require quite a bit of pressure to pop loose. I bought a cheap set of interior panel removal tools which made the job easier but still a bit unnerving. I'd recommend planning on replacing every one of those fasteners on reinstall though. Very cheap from the dealer. Once you pull that piece loose they never seem to bite again quite as good and just seemed to me like it was a rattle looking to happen if they weren't replaced.

Over the past couple weeks I've done an oil change and power steering fluid flush and tonight I just pulled my steering wheel off, again with the help of actually another one of Karl's posts. It's getting sent off to be wrapped in Alcantara. These are all other projects I really wouldn't have had the confidence to take on if it weren't for the fantastic information so readily available here. My tablet spends a lot of time set up on top of my tool box these days.

I'll put another thread up with lots of pictures of the removal of my interior shortly.. I feel it's important to share what I've learned in exchange for all the information I've gained from all the great contributors here.

 

Looks great!

 

Very, very well done

 

Beautiful work! Wow!

So how much will you charge me to do mine?

 

I'll tell you what.. I'll be happy to give you all the help you want for no charge at all! I have lots of pictures documenting what it took to remove and re-install I could send you as well.

I know exactly where to get the material, how much of it you'll need and could even provide you with a small sample piece of quilted material my upholstery guy made up for me as a "proof" before he went forward with the entire headliner. This is something any competent upholstery shop can do very easily. The material cost me around $225.00 and the biggest reason it was that expensive is because I ordered from the Aston Martin supplier in the UK and had to have it shipped here because I couldn't seem to get an exact match from an Alcantara dealer here in the states (for whatever reason). Then the upholstery shop charged me $300 to do the rest. They said it was about 6 hours of work. Another challenge was getting the thread to exactly match the Tailor Grey Alcantara as it did on the other Alcantara bits on the inside of my car. In hindsight I should have ordered the thread from "Boyriven", the Aston Martin UK distributor as well. Thankfully the shop was able to get some that was a perfect match.. (I'm painfully particular and this guy found that out pretty quickly..

It's really a great little project if you have even a fair amount of "know how" I guess. The great thing about cars like ours that are built to such high standards and mostly by hand is that they come apart relatively easily and fit back together perfectly as well. I really ran into no big "snags" along the way, which is what inspired me to go ahead and take the rest of the leather out to sort out a couple things that have been bugging me on the cars interior. I was always bothered by a couple of little rattles and squeaks, mostly in the rear shelf area. Upon removing those pieces, I found some "smoking gun" issues that I could address. There were quite a few broken or loose "push fasteners" I keep calling them (not sure what they're actually called). Another thing that I could finally fix was some smudges on the very lower part of the rear window that could not be reached with the rear shelf in place. Some were between the 3rd brake light and the glass as well. It looked like someone sprayed some leather cleaner back there while wiping off the rear shelf and was unable to get it cleaned back off.. always made me nuts.

In my experience sometimes you're better off taking the time doing these kinds of jobs yourself rather than having the dealer do it. Sure the dealer has highly paid and very experienced techs who know the cars inside and out. However, to me it's like the difference between a professional nanny watching your child or it's mother.. mom's going to do a better job.

The steering wheel is off to DCT Motor Sports today for Alcantara/leather refinishing.. can't wait to get it back! I'll post some pictures of that project as well.

Go ahead and take a crack at it.. you'll love the end result.

 

Nice to see you completed the mods very nicely and the result is perfect

 

Thanks again for the help! I appreciate it very much!

 

Great job Speedracer800 looks beautiful!

 

Looks awesome You're so brave for taking stuff like this on, I have terrible luck with even the easiest of DIY haha

 

Thanks a lot guys.. I really love the end result. I've got the steering wheel off getting covered in a combination of Alcantara and new leather with white stitching to match the rest of the interior. I'll post some pictures when I get it back.

 

Looks Fantastic! Be sure to post pics of the steering wheel! Also the material you used and supplier! My steering wheel was used by The Hulk before I owned it apparently and he squeezed and twisted the hell out of the top part of the steering wheel leather so it is all wrinkled and twisted up! Are you getting the wheel thickened?

 

I know exactly what you're talking about. Mine had similar kind of wear. The leather in these cars while beautiful seems also very soft and delicate. I'm practically running myself through a metal detector before sitting in the car to avoid scratches and scrapes in the hides.

I'm thickening up the padding on the wheel just a bit and going with an Alcantara and leather combination with white stitching to match the rest of the cars interior. This is what I'm aiming for..obviously this is not an AM wheel, but you get the idea.