Darn, the title might be longer that the post! I better get busy!
For a long time now the headliner
has been hanging down. Well, not really hanging down but from behind I could see about 3/16″ between it and the roof. The gap was all black so no big deal but you know how I am.
I pulled the headliner down a little taking care not to put too much strain on it and could see a hole just in front of the motion detector that would be perfect for raising the headliner by using a nylon fastener. I also noted that there was no insulation here. I slid my hand in and it was hot! The headliner seemed to insulate the passenger compartment. Bare metal (the roof) 
and open space and then the fiberboard/fabric (what is it called?) headliner material. BTW, only a stock Sprinter would have this. If you had shelves added here by your RV converter you can stop reading now as this would have been removed.
I put a plastic screw anchor in the hole with the idea I would find something to screw in at the store. Wrong. All I found was something to press in and it worked fine. 
I removed the screw anchor I had put in and drilled a hole into the headliner. I pressed in the new clip and now my headliner is raised by almost 3/4″ at the motion detector.
All right! Oh, the insulation. Before I fastened the headliner up I slid in a large piece of Reflectix insulation. That is the bubble type with both sides covered in aluminum foil -they call it metalized aluminum. I don’t know how you can metalize aluminum – I thought it all ready was – metal. Will it help lessen the heat? Don’t know but it seemed like a good idea.
While I had the Reflectix out I decided to add some to the refrigerator compartment. You will recall we spent time on this previously trying to get rid of the refrigerator vibration (we never did, just lessened it). Pulling the refrig (I am a pro at that now) I cut four pieces of Reflectix and stapled them on top of the insulation (by Sportsmobile). The top was not insulated so I added that. Putting the refrig back in now was a perfect fit on the sides. The insulation presses right up against the refrigerator which is what I wanted. Insulating the top also helped the noise. It is much quieter than the original installion and seems to cycle a lot less. I wish I had “before” data but I don’t. That part of the project took about 40 minutes with more time spent on the trim than anything else.
Tags: headliner, insulate refrigerator
