The International Cessna 170 Association

I have a 1948 170, I'm having a new headliner made. When I removed my headliner the fabric was sandwiched between the fuel gauge and the tank. This seems like a good point of failure. Is this standard practice? or is there a better solution?

We installed an Airtex headliner a few years ago. Here is a photo of the "old" headliner in place before the new one was put in, but the construction of the old and the new were both the same. The fabric on ours (170A version) was "not" sandwiched between the gauge and tank. Instead, there is a drawstring sewn into the headliner fabric at the end of the "tunnel" that is tied behind the fuel gauge assembly, holding it tight. Apologies that I do not have a photo of it before it was installed, nor from the "back". To answer the next question: the drawstring is tightened and tied before the headliner is stretched and secured at the edges of the door frames, etc.

In our photo documentation of an original 48 we have this photo which shows how the original headliner was done around the gas guage. This being the same as for an A-model.

Thanks all for the replies, this makes much more sense. This is essentially what my upholster recommended.