new guy with a question
 

Hi everyone. New person here. I'm looking at a 70 TA and it has this sort of moldy looking discoloration on the headliner around the coat hook. Is that concerning for something else like rust, corrosion etc going on? Thanks.

https://i.imgur.com/sE4EGCRm.jpg

Could the car have been in a barn or garage with windows down got a long time then cleaned up just not done good. I would look under seats and if possible under carpet for any other signs of damage. Looks like heavy dust from sitting to me but can’t be sure from one picture. Good luck getting the car.

I can't be sure of the storage conditions for the entire time since the restoration, but it had a frame off restoration about 6 years ago. For the last 5 years it's been in a climate controlled building. I doubt that it ever got very dusty. Another important bit of information is that it has the same discoloration on the opposite side. I was wondering about condensation/moisture problems or maybe since it's around the hardware for the seat belts and hangers that it could be corroded fasteners or something like that..

This is the other side.

https://i.imgur.com/D6TI8TSl.jpg

If you can look in the trunk with a flashlight you can shine the light up between the inside of the quarter panel and the inner roof structure up a ways and even get a hand a ways up in there to feel for excessive rust on the back side of that area the picture shows. Might have to crawl into the trunk and lay on your back for easiest access.

That mold is probably old. Just never addressed. Bet the underside of hood and rods are rusty, but might be fine for a driver if it doesn't smell.

I just dealt with this on a 65 Mustang I'm restoring. I tried to clean it off, and nothing would touch it. And unfortunately it was a white headliner so it REALLY stood out.
I went ahead and replaced the headliner, and the "mold/rust stain" turned out to be bleed through from the trim adhesive that was sprayed to the back of the headliner to hang it in the first place.
I'll bet that's what you've got. If so, your choices are replace the headliner, or dye it.

I find it hard to believe it had a frame off and they put a molded headliner back in and dirty to top it off. Usually frame offs don’t get old faded parts put back on either. Lots of people call paint jobs frame offs they are not. Taking subframe out to clean it up is not a frame off. You need to look it over better if they are telling you that’s what it is. Just my 2¢

Part of the problem is the car is in Maryland and I'm in Oregon. Yes, I could fly out to see it. But, I've had it inspected and it appears to be as stated. I don't think they put a bad headliner back in it, I think that happened since the restoration. It has been 6 years since it was restored. Here are a few other pictures.

https://i.imgur.com/E0qCznNl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/US7EyCOl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/bigSvKLl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/THIKpznl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/yrVmzdfl.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/Cl2vrYGl.jpg

Looking closer at the pictures of the headliner, it seems that this problem exists along the entire perimeter of the liner, it's just worse around the coat hangers. So I think that Keith K is probably right, it's the adhesive.

Do you have any more pictures of the car you can post?

Yeah, lots more photos of just about every part of the car. I'm at work now so I don't have access to them but if there is something in particular you wanted to see I can post tomorrow morning or maybe this evening when I get home. I do have some other pics of the headliner.

Nice looking car and I'm wondering who in MD owns it. LOTS of Pontiac guys in central MD, you might get one of the Royal GTO club guys to look at it for you or they might know the car. If its reasonably close to OC I could look at it for you.

Beautiful car.

Tim john---

Could it be the original headliner that was NEVER replaced? That much dust/dirt around the hook and seatbelt trim piece looks about right for a 50 year old car.
Very nice looking car.

Well, it's a vintage car for sale on the internet so I'm sure just about anything is possible. Seems hard to believe they would do everything else and skip the headliner though.

That is a very nice looking car it’s hard to believe those headliner pictures and that interior picture are from the same car. Maybe like 4birds said they never took the headliner out.

That's a very generous offer. I just mapped it out on Google and it's about 3 hours from OC. That's far.

It looks like mold to me.

If the car has moisture in the air that's inside it and the windows are up. The warmest, moistest, air rises to the top. If you open the building up during winter and let cold air in, the moisture condenses on the inside of the car roof (because very little insulation)and in the case of the headliner, the places where the headliner touches the roof structure metal (or is very close) will get damp. Then the mold grows because the car's inside a dark warm building (temp controlled).

So if it truly was "climate controlled" and the building was opened to cold air during the winter months I can easily see how mold would grow since it's got all the perfect conditions. In the pics I see a big storage barn full of cars, no leaves on the trees (so winter), and a big garage door wide open while they were taking pics. That scenario was probably enough to cause some condensation to form in the cars still inside if the building is normally heated. Just the concrete floor will pull moisture up from the ground into the indoor air with the heat on in the building.

Same thing happens to cars that sit outside when they leak. Have seen it many times. Carpet's wet and floor rotting out from T tops, sunroof, the typical cowl pond rust through, or whatever. During warm winter days when there's no shade from trees the interior warms up like a greenhouse and moisture is in the air in the car. When sun goes down condensation forms and depending on temp may freeze overnight or not. Next day the process repeats. When you see the condensation on the inside of the windshield of abandoned cars it's from the same process. This is why we often find rust inside the car at the base of the the windshield where the A pillar connects., it's not that the windshield leaked, it's from condensation.

Ask seller to try to clean a small spot where the material isn't directly touching the metal structure with some Simple Green and a terrycloth. Mold will come off (or mostly) where if it was glue it wouldn't. And I don't know about others but I never apply glue where it can possibly bleed through a bow type headliner. The rest of the interior seen in the pics looks nicely done so I doubt whoever did the interior would have used glue where it could potentially cause a problem.

I'm thinking the same thing. If the original headliner was not torn, ripped, or sagging...I'd have left it alone and done the rest of the restoration around it, too (and maybe the read-through that's visible now was less so when the car was restored). It's not hard to replace them, but it isn't easy to get the repro headliners as tight and wrinkle free as they were from the factory.

This picture says nice original 50 year old parts to me... not new a few years ago and kept in climate controlled storage.

Overall, the car looks very nice!


https://i.imgur.com/D6TI8TSl.jpg

The mold gets there the same way whether original or replaced. I do agree it looks original.