Headliner Tutorial
 

http://www.meissenation.com/car/leds.jpg
Well, lately I've been having a lot of people ask me how to do this, so I figured I'd throw together a quick write up. As all my wonderful install tutorials, I only have pictures of the finished project. Ah well, hopefully this will be easy to understand with just text. If not, throw me an email and I'll be more than happy to help. In any case, here's how to do it. Good luck!
Of course, the amount of LEDs and where you get them are up to you, but below this is exactly what I needed/used.


Tools:
Soldering Iron
Solder
Large Flatbladed Screw Driver
Phillips Screw Driver

"The Goods"
6 LEDs (Purchased from Oznium.com, request resistors with them)
Automotive Silicone Sealant
DupliColor Vinyl & Fabric Dye (Completely optional, I wanted to dye mine black while I had it out of the car)

If you know how to get it out, skip this paragraph, if not to get it out (Mine's a T-Top so it might be different for hard tops) you pop the t-top out of the way and remove the A-pillar, the panel that runs along the windshield that the t-tops latch into, that's held on by two screws. Then you remove the visor, I think that was two more screws, maybe 4? There's also a plastic panel on the back of where the t-top latches into, two screws there. The hardest part is removing those dang hanger hooks that are on either side of that plastic panel. Personally, I didn't care much about the hangers so I just took the biggest flatblade screw driver I could find, wedged it beneath it, and pried until it flung across the car haha. In any case, ya remove the dome light... and if I remember correctly then it's just a matter of gently yanking and what not to get the headliner out.

Alright so once it's out, I actually dyed mine first.. so if you want to do that too it'd be a good time to do it. I made mine black, although it looks gray in pictures there's a good noticeable difference between the once matching visors now that it's all back together. As for the LEDs, I ordered mine from Oznium... definitely recommend them over radioshack or other places like that.. my oznium LEDs are bright as hell and I think they even throw in the needed resistor too for like $.10 more or something, not sure, but in any case it's a lot cheaper to go through oznium than radio shack or places like that. I took the LED with me to a hardware store and compared drill bits, and found the one that was closest to the size of the LED but just slightly smaller.. can't remember what size it was exactly, but in any case you want it to be very slightly smaller so it'll be a snug fit. Then it was just a matter of putting a board on the back of the headliner for support, and drilling right through to make the holes. Once the holes were drilled, shove the LED in to where you want and personally I then used automotive silicone sealant and glopped it over each LED so the sealant would bond with the headliner foam and the back of the LED to kinda glue it in place -- and it works as an insulator for the bare leads.
http://www.meissenation.com/headliner_wiring.jpg
As far as wiring the LED is concerned, I just did two parallel lines of wires... all the positives connected and all the negatives connected, then at the one end a resistor goes on the positive side. Then again I glopped tons of silicone sealant, made a mess to be honest, all over the headliner because it works as an insulator so the wires don't short... and it also "glues" the wires down.. down side is that it does weigh it down more, but so far so good haven't had any problems. In any case, connect a long wire to both so you got some slack, and then when you're back out in the car just tap into the two wires that run to the dome light... that way the LEDs will come on with your interior courtesy lights (When you open the door, or manually turn your interior lights on... any time the dome light comes on, the LEDs will too..)
If you know how to solder, definitely would recommend soldering rather than just twisting the wires together... and as far as tapping in I found the easiest thing to do was to take the wire strippers, cut the insulation on the wire you want to tap into, and then (without actually putting more cutting force on it) tug or push on the insulation so that it bunches up whichever way you do it, and then you'll have exposed metal wire showing... just take the wire you want to connect to it, wrap it around it, and solder the connection together and tada a good tap and you didn't have to actually cut into any wires. Installation is going to be a bit more fun as removal, but it should go in fairly easilly. Once it's all together, open the door or turn your interior lights on and enjoy the view! http://www.meissenation.com/car/leds.jpg http://www.meissenation.com/car/4leds.JPG
http://www.meissenation.com/car/leds_dome.JPG http://www.meissenation.com/headliner_wiring.jpg

my word that is sick

I voted this as usefull because it's given me some great idea's for my car.

sick in a good way, or sick in a bad way? :p

sick in an awesome way. i need to do that...but i don't think it'd look so sweet without the t-tops for some reason.

yea if i was into leds n stuff Id hit that up good job bro!

Nah, dude, what would look really good would be to line the LED's along where the window is, but aim it towards the inside of the car... then when they're on they'd light up the seats. Then maybe do something down the middle, too.

If I had enough room on my headliner, I would've done the chevy emblem.

Nice job man! Your on a roll with all you helping posts:) And if I was more into the neons and LEDs anymore I would totally do that..