Best fabric glue for high temperatures?

March 1, 2018 2:32 PM

What kind of fabric glue will hold up on the interior of my car in the heat of summer sun?

The fabric that is covering the inside roof of my 13-year-old Mazda is beginning to fall down at the front and back windshields, due to the heat of the summer sun. It's peeling about two inches on each window, hanging down like a little surrey fringe.

Underneath the peeling fabric is some kind of semi-hard foam material. I've glued it back up before with contact cement but it didn't hold and the fabric started falling down again.

Can you recommend a fabric glue that will hold in high temperatures?Should I try a staple gun? I'm not that worried about how the fix look but I think I need to start fixing it before it starts obscuring the rear window and gets dangerous.

I do have a hot glue gun, if you think that would work.

posted by chocolatepeanutbuttercup to Home & Garden (10 answers total)

Here are some specialty sprays. The part is called a headliner.

I've tried all kinds of things that didn't work when I was a teen, and then I just ripped it all out.
posted by advicepig at 2:44 PM on March 1, 2018

This stuff holds felt bearings on clothes dryer drums .
posted by hortense at 2:58 PM on March 1, 2018

I have not had good luck with fabric glues and I've tried maybe 5-7. I use a regular glue gun. I can't say how it will respond to very high temperatures. It's quick, dries quick and I think worth a try.
posted by beccaj at 4:29 PM on March 1, 2018

My car is doing the same thing, and according to the car upholstery guy I asked about this issue, the cause is not so much failure of the glue as breakdown of the surface layer of the lining foam where it's been exposed to two decades of thermal cycling.

That foam, by the way, was probably not semi-hard when first installed.

The solution I adopted was just to trim off the dangly parts with scissors. Looks like shit but doesn't obscure vision any more. I figure the whole lot will need to get replaced with something else at some point, but until my car roof becomes annoyingly loud and drummy I'm just going to keep trimming.
posted by flabdablet at 6:15 PM on March 1, 2018

The other effect that contributes to this is that the vinyl surface of the roof liner shrinks over time as the plasticizer slowly cooks out of it, and the shrinkage pulls the foam away from the roof at the edges.
posted by flabdablet at 6:18 PM on March 1, 2018

Oh hey! Similar age Mazda owner with a similar problem. I first just taped it; then pins and fabric glue; then my most successful attempt was using spray glue that held for about 3 months.

Ultimately I got the headliner (the interior ceiling) replaced for about $250 at a car detailing place.

You can buy the headliner for about $100 but it’s a pain in the neck to DIY and I opted to spend the extra.
posted by samthemander at 6:44 PM on March 1, 2018

Oh also- my car lasted about 4-5 months with no progression with clear plastic tape holding the edges to the interior of the car. However once it started dropping in the middle area, it was really pretty done.
posted by samthemander at 6:46 PM on March 1, 2018

When this happened to my old Saturn I ripped the whole thing out and replaced it with a cheerful yellow cotton print of umbrellas. It looked awful and mortified my family and I loved it. I tried several different glues and the best was a combination of spray adhesive from the auto parts store and staples. I still had to reapply the adhesive to saggy bits every so often but definitely it worked better than everything else. You do have to apply it with all the doors open and let it air out for a long time though - it’s crazy toxic smelling - and staples in certain places are key.
posted by mygothlaundry at 6:11 AM on March 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

We had the same problem with a 90's Oldsmobile. The snag was that the underlying (overlying) foam disintegrated, so rather than the glue failing it was the substrate failing. I used pins which were moderately successful until they got dislodged (and then became a hazard) but in the end just pulled the lining all off.
posted by anadem at 9:27 AM on March 2, 2018

You might try some spots with double-sided VHB tape. It should stick as long as the things it’s sticking to stay put.

If the foam layer disintegrates, you could try to cut through it and stick to the sheet metal (maybe with a spacer or some sort), but I warn you that I have not tried this and it may not be practical.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 12:07 PM on March 2, 2018