Headliner mounting rails/bows removal

As time has progressed over these past few months, every now and again I would grab at some random scrap of headliner that was hanging down and just tear that sucker out. The headliner has been toast on this car for decades. Now it's time to get the rest of it all out.

First up are the mounting rails that run along above where the doors fit.

Each side has four rails of varying shapes/sizes, held down with screws. Most of these come out easily, but a couple at the rear end, caked with glue from the previous headliner, are a bit tougher to extract.

Passenger side headliner mounting rails, laid out in order.

Now that those rails are removed, I should be able to get the center mounting posts of the grip rails out as well (located just above the pillars).

Next task is to remove the metal bows that run across the top of the passenger compartment.

There are seven of these bows across the top of the compartment. As best I can tell from reading some related webpages, the headliner should have sleeves that these bows slide through to hold it in place. Those sleeves are like the sleeves in camping tents, that the collapsable supports are slid into and out the other side, I'm guessing.

Here's an article on the Ponton site that will no doubt come in handy when the time comes to install a new headliner:

http://www.mbzponton.org/valueadded/maintenance/headlnr.htm

I don't know if it's just age or what, but I can't get a good purchase on these bows to pull one end out - so I end up rotating them downward, and then one end pops out easily.

All seven bows out, and the more solid remains of the padding strips are out.