The question pertains to my truck, but since it's common to nearly every later model Chrysler vehicle out there I'm asking here.

The cloth over foam backing headliner in my 96 Ram is coming loose by the windshield. What is the best way to repair it? I'd like to just glue it back up, but I suspect I will need to find the just right adhesive that won't melt the backing or soak through the cloth creating a bigger problem. Right now I have blue painters tape holding it the windshield to keep it from getting any worse.

What have you done to fix this problem?

A friend of mine fixed the headliner in his 86 Cutlass himself and it looks brand new.

He bought some headliner material at a fabric store.(his origonal material was too far gone to re-use) Then used spray adheasive to attach it to the backing. The trick was to get enough glue on the backing so the material would stick...but not get too much on it otherwise it would bleed through the material. He ended up having to redo it three times before he got it right. The glue kept bleeding through the material.

If its the kind of headliner with the nasty deteorating foam under it, you will never get any glue to hold it back up permanently. The only way to do it right is to take the headliner out, remove every last inch of foam, clean it as good as possible, and install new covering with the right adhesive.

what happens is the foam under the fabric deteriorates, usually due to a combination of heat and humidity. I've tried many things, the only way to fix it once and for all is to replace the foam backed fabric. any attempts to re-glue the existing fabric has only lasted about a month max for me.

if you go to the nearest Jo-Ann's fabric, they have the headliner fabric for ~ $11/yd. smaller stores have grey and black, the super stores have grey, black, blue, red, and tan. they also have some lock-tite spray contact cement for ~$12 that worked good for me and is comparable to the heat resistant 3M super 90 spray adhesive (the stuff that usually runs $15-20 at the parts store). before you buy it, sign up to receive Jo-anns ads in the mail. they come out every 2 weeks or so, and they have a 40% off any regular priced item coupons, which drops the price of the fabric to under $7, and the adhesive to under $8.

once you get the headliner out, peel the fabric off, and gently use a wire brush to get the stuck on foam off. I wiped the one on my 5th ave down with some laquer thinner before applying the adhesive and recovering.

JUST DID a 1990 minivan headliner kind-of this way.

JoAnn for the fabric ... much thicker than the OEM stuff.

But I used out-door grade carpet adhesive. IF I do this again ...I would use way less adhesive. In areas - it did bleed-through slightly.

I was hoping to find a quick and simple way to repair it, but my gut told me it wasn't going to be that easy. I supected I may have to replace the whole thing.

Is the backer board plastic or something more fragile that I need to be concerned about when I finally get around to doing it?

Thanks for the tips!

on my 5th ave and a friend's '89 pontiac grand am it's almost like a pressed fiberglass board w/o resin, a little springy and some flex to it but can be kinked.

you could try peeling back the bad part, scrubbing off the deteriorated foam, and spraying some of the aforementioned adhesive in there, but don't expect that fix to last too long or look too good.

it took me a few weeks of evenings to do my 5th ave, but ALL trim panels are fabric covered on these cars (A,B,C pillar, rear window surround, upper rear door sail panel, and the headliner). my friend removed, cleaned, re-covered, and reinstalled the headliner in his grand prix on a saturday morning (3-4 hours tops)

I have had the same problem on a 1995 Ram
and have encountered similar on a 2000 Chrysler Town & Country.

The best temporary fix is to go to Walmart's sewing section and buy a $2 package of
"T headed pins"
and then slide these pins backward through the fabric of the headliner into the deeper side of the foam underneath the fabric. By going deeper you anchor in foam that has not yet deteriorated. The large T head on the pin will not go through the fabric like the small round head of a typical pin.

If you look at your Ram from the outside you will see that near the top of the windshield there is a blackened section of glass that hides seeing the edge where the headliner ends.

If you slide the T headed pins in within a quarter inch of this edge you will find that the repair is invisible from outside. You have to look carefully to see the same edge from the inside too.

Like others say above,
it is just a matter of time until the headliner comes loose from the foam in big open areas.
It cannot be glued back very long to foam that itself has lost strength.

I got 2 years between temporarily fixing the front edge with T head pins,
and later having the headliner come loose in front of the rear window.

Good luck

PS:
Got milky spots on your Ram paint, especially on the hood and roof?
These are cracks allowing water beneath the clear coat.
Best temporary fix is to clean milky area, dry carefully, set in sun for more drying, then spray with WD-40 to displace the water in the cracks. This improves appearance for 3 to 7 days depending on weather.