It was back in 2018 that we last looked at the sunroof (it is here if interested). At that time it had the cover fitted, apart from the rear and critical edge which is important for tension purposes and had been on my dining room table for a year. 

Well, I am glad to say that the cover moved from the dining room to the garage and eventually onto the car. It was decided in the end that the best way to tension and glue the rear edge was to fit the damn thing, albeit temporarily, let the glue go off, remove the roof, then fold the rear flaps underneath. Following this slightly unorthodox procedure I ended up with a roof which was ready to go onto the car, if it were not for the need to refit the headlining. 

Everyone wants their headlining to look nice, right? We don't want it to resemble a ruched boudoir yet there were just so many areas where it had to fit. These are:

1. Front top edge of screen surround

2. The inner sides of the door frames

3. The sunroof aperture

4. The rear screen area

If ever there was the possibility of total failure, this was it. I've mentioned before that I can fall at any hurdle requiring accuracy, so my mates Terry and Neil were requisitioned to stop me from following my usual "just lob it in" mentality. Neil is very good with anything requiring metal rulers, callipers, dial gauges, micrometres, torque wrenches, lasers, particle accelerators and so on, none of which were helpful in this case. Terry, on the other hand, is adept at studying a particular thing for hours, like a hole for a grommet and declaring that the car is to be written off because the replacement grommet is 0.00001mm too small. Clearly these were the friends I needed and jolly grateful of them I am, too.

Where was I? Oh yes, the headlining. One of the difficulties encountered was that all of the above challenges needed to be addressed while contending with a part which was fundamentally upside down. What I mean is, the headlining is unlike anything else because you have to fit it upwards and of course gravity is all the time trying to defeat you. It isn't literally upside down (if it were, it would be carpet) but it is very difficult to fit at all, let alone accurately.

Your friend here, aside from Terry and Neil, is the the bulldog clip. I bought up the world's entire stock (DVLA had to close for a month as a result) and used them to good effect in attaching the headlining and tensioning it. Progressive errors are really common here and when, for example, you attach the headling to, say, the front corner of the screen surround and pull to tension it, wrinkles will appear in the most unexpected places such as the boot/trunk carpet. I made that last bit up but it really is like trying to fit a duvet cover to a duvet in one of those military jets which do massive nose dives to create anti-gravity. 

Having got it about right, albeit accepting that some wrinkles would be there forever, the next step was to cut out the hole for the sunroof. As you can imagine, this was very nerve-wracking and certainly a step requiring Neil to measure twenty times and Terry to check his work. Eventually, after much group bonding and some deep breathing exercises, Neil was brandishing a very sharp knife and declared something like "Well chaps, I'm going in. Wish me luck". Terry couldn't watch.

So, a large hole was cut out of Bessy's lovely new headlining (by the way, this was the second one I bought as the original was of the wrong pattern. This one is "Houndstooth", unlike the other which is called something like "Lots of Dots". I still have the unused one, new and in its original BL box if anyone needs one). Once cut, the edges were glued to the roof and the runners for the sunroof fitted. After this, the sunroof itself went in and the job was done. 

There, wasn't that hard, was it?