Interior Cleaning HELP!

BosnianLanos · Post by **BosnianLanos** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 11:55 pm

The interior of my Lanos is filthy, and after years of being my only car it received very little care, so now, my interior is filthy. It's not a total wreck, I don't eat or drink inside of it, and most of the dirt is just normal wear and tear. Seats are dirty from driving for so long, headliner is dirty from open windows, and my plastic panels are dirty where people touched them with their shoes.

So tomorrow, at dawn, it begins, I'm taking out my seats, carpet, headliner, and all interior panels, minus the dash which I have kept clean.

Some things I need to know from you guys:

1. How the hell do I get the headliner out of the car??? Do I just squeeze it out through the trunk or is there a better way? Also, since the headliner is some really weird material, how do I go about cleaning it?

2. Is the seat fabric on the Lanos removable? I know it is on some cars, but is it on the Lanos?

These are my main concerns as most of the stuff has been removed before.

Please help guys, this is one of the rare days I have to get this done.

Thanks,
Damir.

GsiTurbo · Post by **GsiTurbo** » Sat Apr 02, 2005 12:00 am

What worked for me very well in the past is a steam cleaner with a small attachment. It cost me about $60 to rent it for the weekend, and it worked very well.

The seat fabric is removable, but its very much time consuming...you basically have to put the seats completely apart.

Tom

ubuyau · Post by **ubuyau** » Sat Apr 02, 2005 8:35 am

When i took the headlining off i had to take the plastic trim from around the windows off too as the roof wouldnt come out past it for me...

Its just stiffened cardboard so its really easy to glue something nice (like silver velour hint hint

) to it. Just use really strong fabric glue

It slides out thru the rear hatch once the A, B and C pillars are out.

After many hours of contemplation i still dont know how to remove the three round trim clips (that are above the rear seat back rest in the roof) without destroying them. Dont worry tho, because the roof is still held well in place by the rest of the trim - so get to work with those pliers!

You should post before and after pics

--Tim

TheGreatAndPowerfulOz · Sat Apr 02, 2005 12:25 pm

You can pick up a door and interior trim removal tool for around $5. It is flat with a small curve and has some V notches in it and looks like this:

There are other shaped trim removal tools available, but this is just to give you an idea of what one looks like.

It can be used to remove the push-in type clips:

If the trim clips are the ones with the small cound push-in center, then you just push the center in even more, so it is about 1/2 way in. Once the center is pushed in, the whole clip should easily pull out.
They look like this:

Oh yeah, I almost forgot; when taking out the head liner, don't forget to remove the screws that are under the dome light! I almost forgot to take that out when I had the headliner out of my Lanos.

Cliff

kinkyllama · Post by **kinkyllama** » Sat Apr 02, 2005 3:48 pm

TheGreatAndPowerfulOz wrote:You can pick up a door and interior trim removal tool for around $5. It is flat with a small curve and has some V notches in it and looks like this:

There are other shaped trim removal tools available, but this is just to give you an idea of what one looks like.

It can be used to remove the push-in type clips:

If the trim clips are the ones with the small cound push-in center, then you just push the center in even more, so it is about 1/2 way in. Once the center is pushed in, the whole clip should easily pull out.
They look like this:

Oh yeah, I almost forgot; when taking out the head liner, don't forget to remove the screws that are under the dome light! I almost forgot to take that out when I had the headliner out of my Lanos.

Cliff

I wish i knew this when i was painting my dash

BosnianLanos · Post by **BosnianLanos** » Sat Apr 02, 2005 4:18 pm

Thanks alot guys, I know how to take off door panels and interior panels, even the headliner, only thing tripping me out is how to take the headliner out of the car. Do I take it out through the trunk or what? Keep in mind that I have a sedan (A cooler version than the HB

) and I think initially the headliner goes in through the windshield hole during assemly.

MMamdouh · Post by **MMamdouh** » Sat Apr 02, 2005 9:45 pm

that sounds about right but it is not feasable in your case... why don't you try the front door??

back up both front seats then lean the back of the seats all the way to the back then try to let the front end of the head liner to slide out of the door... it is basicly cardboard so it can handle some bending.

i haven't tried this myself but it is all i could think of right now.

MMamdouh

BosnianLanos · Post by **BosnianLanos** » Sun Apr 03, 2005 12:25 am

Anyone need any leg room?

A few pics of today's project.

Stripped interior, I left the carpet because it was fairly clean (flash makes it look filthy) and the headliner for another day.

Just to show you how dirty my headliner is, this is the area under the panel

And my newest mod, I bought a cluster on Ebay since my old one kicked the bucket, I painted the thing silver, in the pics you can see it in the dash installed. How does it have 000000 Miles you ask? Lets just say it's really easy to commit odometer fraud on a Woo. No, I won't be using that speedometer I'll use my old one with 185,757 miles.

flat6 · Post by **flat6** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 12:52 pm

I took the interior out of my car not long ago and steam cleaned it, didnt go as far as the roof panel but took the front seats, rear seats and arm rests out, hosed the vinyl door covers and cleaned the seats over 7 times, the water in the machine was black..

well worth it, but after i cleaned it, i messed it up twice as bad driving a few drunk friends in the back, bloody typical lol