1998 Ford Escort SE Wagon Headliner Upholstery (and mystery black box ??)

I'm fixing my headliner and a few other things while its out.. One of them being the loose roof rack nuts and a missing nut causing a leak in the back (messed up a brand new speaker ) I am also adding an additional dome light in the back to help me see at night after work when loading my gear in the trunk area.

Here are a few photos while me and my buddy took out the headliner.. I'll be posting photos as we work on it..


This was also a photo of two black boxes on the roof, driver side.. What the hell is that? gps tracking system or something? doesn't look like something that came with this car.. I was at the junk yard a few days ago grabbing the extra dome light for the trunk area, and I did not see these two black boxes with wires in any of the escorts there.. or the two 98 wagons i saw there :!


Here's a photo from the back.. right on top center of this photo (where the shadow bump is at) is where im planning on adding that second dome light.



There was loose nuts everywhere (probably because of how old this car is and my subwoofer )


There was a nut missing from the roof rack!! I found an extra one in my tool box, phew! Added some silicon to all the screws. That should seal things up ^-^


The torn up roof i had lol. Getting that fixed tomorrow


Sorry for the crappy photos, I totally forgot I wanted to take photos of this for you guys (anyone else that wants/needs help taking out the headliner or something) I'll take better ones tomorrow!

ALSO, If anyone knows what those black boxes are, PLEASE let me know if that's suppose to be there... kinda weirded out that there's these random boxes up there lol

I looked up the boxes, and it may be one of these; http://www.carblackbox.co.uk/ Not sure if they were installed in the 'Scorts stock though. Do you have power locks with a keyfob to unlock it? Because I know they usually have some sort of a receiver up under the headliner.

Yea, I can lock and unlock driver door and trunk only with the keyfob thing.. and eekkk.. I don't like the fact that the link is making sense.. Ford is tracking my every move o___o

Thanks for the reply though

Yeah, it's a bit of a scary idea.

I went and asked the previous owner (my friends mom lol) what that was and she told me it was probably the Lojack they had installed on her car.. she remembers Ford doing the installation when it was included with her deal after buying it new off the lot.. she just didn't know where they placed the module or whatever.. but its out of date and not in service for this car anymore.. I'm thinking of just leaving it there just in case it doesn't mess with the car itself :!

Unless it's coupled with something to disable your car from turning on, you can just rip them out. Not sure how you'd go about finding if it was connected to something, though.

I'm going to call Ford and ask them just in case.. If its not in service or out of date then i'm just going to rip it out before i reinstall my headliner..

i just got the headliner done too.. waiting for it to dry.. will be installing that extra dome in the back as well..

Here are some photos of me and my buddies work in progress








I forgot to take photos of the new hole for the dome light in the back but will do tomorrow after we finish installing it

So here's an update with the headliner work i did to my 'scort.. Removed that black box (an older version of lojack that is out of date and no longer is covered by them) Headliner sealed and cured, added the extra dome for the rear trunk area.. Looks good so far and lights up way better than before.. I'm also planning on switching out the bulb to LED lights so that should increase visibility for me when loading and unloading camera gear Here are some photos I was able to get while fitting everything in


That isn't how I left it on there.. I was only testing things but did tap into the main dome map light..



We cut a hole as far back as we could and then tied it down with some screws and that black square thing i forgot the name of lol.


How it looks from the back.


How it looks from the front.. The headliner looks darker than the interior but thats how it came out in the photo.. Its suede btw.. the only fabric they had in stock -__-

going outside now to see how it looks in the dark... will post a pic with my pro cam to get it to show how much of a difference there is..

Wow what a difference.. I can imagine how brighter its going to be when i install the led lights Here are a few pics from different angles and with it on/off (Forgot to connect the ground so for now, it only turns on when i unlock the doors with the keyfob or open the doors)

The rear dome off...




With the rear dome on...











Huge difference after adding a second light in the rear (Original dome that came with the car.. I was originally going to use the second map light i bought but it looked kinda tacky since the front already has one.. plus the color i was able to find didnt match at all)

If you have any questions, I'll be more than willing to answer to the best of my ability.. I want to be as helpful and involved in this forum as i can

That rear dome light was a badass idea.

It really makes a difference too lol.. planning on switching to leds soon.. gotta figure out about the outside lights first though.. and currently figuring out why my cluster's temp gauge isn't working... i just switched it in (oem no tach to tach) and was only able to test out everything else but the temp gauge :/

wonder if I could replace my trunk light with a regular OEM dome light (LED)?

I have the same issue with the rear not having any light but if you notice on the rear hatch door interior panel there will be a square indentation. That is for the rear trunk light. I think it was an option. Mine didn't come with it and the panels I found at the junkyard were cracked so I'm going to pull my rear panel off and cut out the area to fit the light in there. Hopefully Ford left the wiring for it as it seems they used only one loom for all the models instead of a different one depending on what options you wanted for the car so hopefully it's just plug and play. I was just at the junkyard today and found two fixtures. One with an on/off switch and another without the switch which I assume was controlled with a door switch. I will be putting an LED bulb in it for brighter lighting. I also plan on running a light into the engine bay attached to the hood.

I like what you did with the one you installed.

I plan on pulling my headliner as I want to move the antenna location to the back behind the rear washer squirter and use a VW style shorty antenna along with wanting to pull the rack off and recondition the plastic so that it looks new again. It would also be a good time to clean out the roof channels where the rack goes and reseal everything with silicone sealant to keep things nice and tight along with having access to be able to sand down the the roof for the repaint.

How hard was it to pull the headliner and reinstall? Can one person do it or is it a two man job?

John