BoatMan
Member
While I am waiting for a few parts to get here for the Brakes I wanted to order a new headliner for the 66 300. Any success here with a certain brand/company?
Headliner
- Thread starter BoatMan
- Start date
SMS auto fabrics has the correct patterns and fabrics. Some years used multiple fabrics so send them a sample of you fabric if possible. They will need to know the fabric, color and number of top bows and if they are steel or plastic bows to correctly make you a new headliner. Will also need to know if it is a 2 or 4door unit, with the appropriate vehicle production code, ie CP21 etc. www.smsautofabrics.com, 503-2633-535.
Dave
Dave
LocuMob
Fluid Technician with a hat
But be prepared to wait, they do great work but it takes time.
They have most fabrics in stock and it will usually take 2-3 weeks to ship the order. If they have to order the fabric, you might be looking at 6-8 weeks plus however long it takes UPS to get it two you.
Dave
I have a month in waiting for SMS because they were the only ones that had the correct material for my Barracuda.
But.... If you aren't real fussy about using the right material, there's other faster and cheaper vendors. Here's the deal.... There's really only one company sewing headliners and that's Acme Headliners. They are the only game in town and I'm 99% sure that's where SMS has their's done. All the vendors buy from Acme and resell them.
The difference is they use a generic material rather than the special stuff that SMS sells. It's about a third of the price.
So... About the best deal I found was from these guys. Auto Carpet for Car, Truck, Van - Stock Interiors They seem to have a good reputation too. They use Acme Headliners. I ordered some samples from them and they came directly from Acme, as did a few other vendor's samples.
If you can live with a material that isn't "correct", but still looks "right", order up some samples and see what you think.
If you want "correct" material, go to SMS and again, order some samples. Be prepared to wait and dig a lot deeper in your wallet. Your choice.
But.... If you aren't real fussy about using the right material, there's other faster and cheaper vendors. Here's the deal.... There's really only one company sewing headliners and that's Acme Headliners. They are the only game in town and I'm 99% sure that's where SMS has their's done. All the vendors buy from Acme and resell them.
The difference is they use a generic material rather than the special stuff that SMS sells. It's about a third of the price.
So... About the best deal I found was from these guys. Auto Carpet for Car, Truck, Van - Stock Interiors They seem to have a good reputation too. They use Acme Headliners. I ordered some samples from them and they came directly from Acme, as did a few other vendor's samples.
If you can live with a material that isn't "correct", but still looks "right", order up some samples and see what you think.
If you want "correct" material, go to SMS and again, order some samples. Be prepared to wait and dig a lot deeper in your wallet. Your choice.
SMS is Ok.....
It took them a couple of tries and a helluva long time to get it right.
It took them a couple of tries and a helluva long time to get it right.
John
I live about an hour away from SMS. They have a full sewing shop on premises. The two old farts that run the place are both in their mid-70's. The people doing the actual sewing are in the back of the warehouse and are younger and well equipped to do the work. Worry what will happen if the owners pass on as I do not think any of their kids or other relatives are in this business.
Dave
I met one of the guys that own SMS in the early eighties. Nice guy.
Like I said... 99% sure... LOL.
Although the person that took the order made it sound like they "farmed it out" and it would still make sense if they did.
I'll tell ya too... The SMS material was an exact match to the original material. Can't take that away...
rapidtrans
Senior Member
How hard is the install of our headliners? This something a fairly capable guy can do himself? Jon provided a new headliner with the Monaco i have yet to install.
It's not really all that hard to do - I put a new one in my 65 Polara a few (37-38?) years ago. I would suggest you do it differently than I did, though. I had my wife give me a 10 minute lesson on using her sewing machine, bought some material from a local upholstery shop and had at it. It actually came out quite well and in fact still looks pretty good as long as you ignore a couple small wrinkles at the corners of the windshield.
Mike
Mike
Duncan
Well-Known Member
I didn't even want to try! I'm not that mechanically inclined, I'm afraid. I checked around and found a good auto upholstery shop that did my seats in matching original fabrics that came out great. So when it came time to do the headliner I had them do it as well. It also came out great. Both seats and headliner look original.
FWIW, I did the headliner in my 4DSD:
'67 Newport headliner, windlace, and trim | For C Bodies Only Classic Mopar Forum
I didn't have any luck with SMS, never actually talked to a human, lost in email and voicemail.
I contacted Original Auto Interiors which sells for Acme Auto Headlining. I would highly recommend them both. They were very helpful and corrected some dimensional discrepancies for no additional charges.
There were some challenges, but overall, I would probably do another if need be.
Slow and steady wins the race.
Hope the input helps.
John
I did my vinyl top from SMS and my headliner. It was about 6 weeks to get it. But the fabric was a perfect match after I sent in a piece of the old. Just got it right after Christmas.
Still haven’t found the right windlass.
Still haven’t found the right windlass.
Have you checked Kanter's?
Thanks I will have to try them out but most seem to be either more burgundy or red. Mine is somewhere in between. The SMS weave was a little larger as well. I did get some of the burgundy but really looks purple next to the headliner. The picture makes it look like it matches, but is off.
I got my headliner the other day and it came directly from SMS. Looks pretty good too.
And... I went to the SMS website and it looks like it's been updated since the last time I was there. I read this.... "We weave over 1,000 different patterns of cloth, make over 1,000 styles of door panels, thousands of vinyls, and sew all of our headliners in-house."
So... I stand corrected, SMS obviously does make their headliners in house and this proves it.
Similar threads
