1996 Itasca Sunrise 31rq F53 Project Head Liner

[FrankenHome]

Hello All,


Moving on to the headliner (or ceiling) in our 20 year old RV. The first two pictures are what the headliner looked liked when we purchased the RV. No surprise. Foam backed material glued to the substrate was a common type of headliner in most vehicles. Over time the foam breaks down and the headliner separates and drops. In our RV the failed headliner was already cut away in the front sections and what remained of the original headliner was sagging. Oddly enough the PO had the headliner replaced in the bedroom but that was as far as it went. My guess is that he got tired of foam particles raining down every night.


The remaining foam kept shedding little particles everywhere so it had to go. I cut away the remaining material and scraped the foam off the plywood. This is a seriously messy job. The foam and glue will stick to everything so make sure you cover everything with plastic sheets. I then used a very stiff plastic brush to brushed off as much of the remaining foam particles from the ceiling. After all this I used cotton rags...(NOTE: I'm only sharing what I did. If you do this please proceed at you own risk and use fans and lots of ventilation.)... soaked with Acetone and used a lot elbow grease to remove as much of the glue as I could from the plywood. Work small sections at a time. You will NOT get it all off and I don't recommend that you try. Just get the worst of it.

Now what to cover the plywood with? I've actually repaired car headliners with new material and a special 3M brand spray glue but the application of the glue must be done absolutely correctly or the new material won't stick for very long. You can find a very well done YouTube video of some guys doing this in a similar RV but I decided against trying to glue new material. Besides, I don't what to take down all the cabinets to apply the new material.

I'm going with paint. I went to the local hardware and purchased a quart of Rust-Oleum Chalked Paint. It has a nice ultra matte finish so it shouldn't reflect head lights back at me and the windshield at night and it covers all the left over glue spots. I've only painted one section so far but I like what I see so I'm going for the whole thing this weekend. I've also ordered new LED ceiling lights that should be here this week. It should look great when it's finished. I'll post a couple AFTER pictures when I'm done.

John

[FrankenHome]

And finally, this is how it looks today with paint and new lights.

[Elandan2]

Impressive!!

[Rickf1985]

Boy, must be nice to have on o dem luxory motor coaches with ducted air!!! :)rotflmao :)rotflmao :)rotflmao :)rotflmao :)rotflmao

Looks good man.

[TerryH]

That looks great. I am soon going to have do deal with my headliner, same problems. However as I live aboard I am looking at different options. Completely removing the vinyl and foam would not be viable for my situation. However, looking at your heat duct covers has given me an idea for my air vents. Those covers and the wood trim would look much nicer than the Fantastic fan trim. Easy to screen, removal for cleaning/servicing would be simple, and I doubt they would detract from air movement. Thanks for the photos.

[FrankenHome]

Thanks guys. My wife gets all the credit for painting. She sweated her butt off today and found out the hard way that a good coat of primer works best before applying two coats of the Rust-Oleum. We're going to test the new LEDs next week at the campground on the Eastern Shore. They really put out some light and don't get hot like regular bulbs. I just hope that they're not too bright!


And having a 20 year old luxury coach IS pretty nice! 



John

[Rickf1985]

You know, All I hear is how LED's are cooler than incandescent and fluorescent lights and yet when we converted at work I can tell you two things I found out about LED's. One is they do NOT last anywhere near as long as the say they do and two, they run very hot as evidenced by the massive heat sinks attached to them. Now, granted, these were 110 volt and 277 volt lights but had the same claims.  I have found that the small LED's on cars get pretty damn hot also. Be sure to let us know how they work out. As far as bright, anything over 3500 K is going to be pretty bright.