kevin-design
Well-known member
So I took on the job of replacing my convertible top myself thinking it would be no big deal since I have a full shop at my disposal and a lot of experience with that type of work. I managed to wrestle the old top off having torn off some of the canvas in areas to remove it, and now have only the frame of the top and some of the nylon straps that run paralell to the car riveted to the frame.
That, I'm guessing was the easy part. I didn't realize how much the top installation job depends on glue! I went out and bought a can of brush-on contact cement to do the job. I haven't attempted any gluing just yet, but I'm assuming that contact cement is the recommended medium. I was thinking that a good method would be to ignore the 'apply to both sides, let dry...' suggestion on the can and apply it wet so that I can still position the fabric. What do you think?
It's going to be difficult to attach to areas where the weatherstripping overlaps the glued on canvas material such as the rear of the convertible top where it meets the 'trunk' area.
The part that really has me stumped it how to get to the part that is buried under the weatherstripping at the back of the windows (perpendicular to the ground). There's no way that I can access this area enough to apply glue and bond the canvas to it while the weatherstripping is in place, and I can't get to the screws to unscrew the weatherstripping. I can see where they are because the back ends of the screws protrude out the frame rails, but I can't get to the heads and couldn't get to them even if the soft part of the weatherstripping was removed because of the metal cradle that is in front of them. WTF? This just seems like bad engineering to me, and its incredibly frusterating to deal with. I started to tear the weatherstripping out last night (during an especially frusterating moment) but then got online to check prices on a new weatherstripping kit- some guy on ebay was selling a complete kit for..... $800!!! Geeez! it's just rubber! That's more than I paid for the whole top! I'm going to try to re-use the weatherstripping I have for the moment until I can afford to replace it, so any tips or advice on any of this would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!
-kevin
That, I'm guessing was the easy part. I didn't realize how much the top installation job depends on glue! I went out and bought a can of brush-on contact cement to do the job. I haven't attempted any gluing just yet, but I'm assuming that contact cement is the recommended medium. I was thinking that a good method would be to ignore the 'apply to both sides, let dry...' suggestion on the can and apply it wet so that I can still position the fabric. What do you think?
It's going to be difficult to attach to areas where the weatherstripping overlaps the glued on canvas material such as the rear of the convertible top where it meets the 'trunk' area.
The part that really has me stumped it how to get to the part that is buried under the weatherstripping at the back of the windows (perpendicular to the ground). There's no way that I can access this area enough to apply glue and bond the canvas to it while the weatherstripping is in place, and I can't get to the screws to unscrew the weatherstripping. I can see where they are because the back ends of the screws protrude out the frame rails, but I can't get to the heads and couldn't get to them even if the soft part of the weatherstripping was removed because of the metal cradle that is in front of them. WTF? This just seems like bad engineering to me, and its incredibly frusterating to deal with. I started to tear the weatherstripping out last night (during an especially frusterating moment) but then got online to check prices on a new weatherstripping kit- some guy on ebay was selling a complete kit for..... $800!!! Geeez! it's just rubber! That's more than I paid for the whole top! I'm going to try to re-use the weatherstripping I have for the moment until I can afford to replace it, so any tips or advice on any of this would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!
-kevin
