Convertible top frame restoration

[Choppintime]

Wondering if anyone has any tips on restoring/painting a convertible top frame. Mine is in excellent shape - no rust. Thinking of sanding it and prepping for paint but also thought about having it blasted. There are just so many moving parts I'm afraid to blast it.

Anyone restore one of these? Are the weather stripping soft parts available? On top of the 'bows' there seems to be a softer type insert. Are these available?

[Burdar]

All the gaskets are available from DMT.  The weatherstripping is available from a couple places.  The material on top of the bows I'm not sure about.  It might not be anything specifically made for a certain vehicle.  It might be a one size fits all type of thing available from an interior shop.

I need to restore the frame on my 68 Dart.  Please do a write-up when you restore yours.  Include lots of pictures.    I have all the weatherstripping and gaskets on hand when I get around to it.

[JS29]

  I wonder if powder coating would be better than painting it. 

[Choppintime]

I was thinking of powder coating it but I don't want to start taking it apart. There are so many moving parts I was worried about powder coat.

If I did coat it I'd guess a semi black? Like a 50% shine?


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[Burdar]

I was thinking SEM Trim Black would be a perfect color.  You can buy it in pints so you can spray it with a gun.

Mine isn't rusty but it is really dirty.  It will have to come all apart to be cleaned.  I guess I'll need to take lot and lots of measurements before I tear into it.

[1 Wild R/T]

I've powder coated three top frame assemblies now...  Leave the side assemblies assembled.... Thats where all the tricky adjustments are made...  Take the cross bows & header off... Remove the two rear struts with grab handles, the rubber handles would not like life in an oven....   You can either bead blast all the parts or chemically clean/strip them, personally I blast them... After everything is clean opening & closing the mechanism a few times clears any abrasive out of the joints....

[soundcontrol]

Following, this work is in my future also. 

[Bpret]

I had mine blasted I left it together came back bare metal no issues. I blew everything off with compressor. Wiped it down with prepsol them primed the bare metal with etch primer. Hung the entire thing from my garage door tracks. Had to rotate and collapse it to get full coverage. Then repeat with top coat. I used sem trim black I am very happy with the results. Although the trim black is a little flatter (less gloss)than the original color. One of my bows was missing the tack strip I purchased a repo one made out of some type of plastic it worked fine.

[Choppintime]

Is the tack strip what's inserted in the channel on the top of the bows?


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[Bpret]

Yes, the original looks like it's made of wood or cork but I could only find one that was made of a plastic looking material worked great and you never see it once the top is on

[Choppintime]

Where did you source that? Mine looks ok other than a couple spots. Like to know where to buy it if it's needed.


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[cudaize]

I just got finished completely disassembling, cleaning, straightening, painting, and refitting the top mechanism to my 71 CUDA.  Unfortunately I didn't take very many pictures during the rebuild.  I did take close to 150 during the tear down, including many showing how the top and pads were attached.  I will answer some of your questions about parts and give an overview of how I did it.

- Weatherstripping:  I bought a Soff Seal kit.  The only pieces I am going to use out of it are the inner and outer header seals.  The rest of the pieces probably are functional but their shape vary from the originals.  For the windshield pillar to front window I have excellent originals that I will be using.  For the two sections on top of the front and rear window I bought a length of 92212-WS from restoration specialties.  This extrusion shape is almost exact to the original.  The other thing I like about having a length is that you can install it from where the header ends and the piece up the back of the rear window meet and cut it to the proper length.  Also you can make the dovetail cut where the mechanism folds and know that it will fit, this would be very difficult with the cut pieces in the kit.  For the pieces that go up the back side of the rear windows I have yet to find anything close offered for these so I went through and picked the best originals I have.  The parts in the Soff-Seal kit are usable, I have them in my Challenger, they are just no where near the shape of the originals.

- Heavy felt pads in the two middle bows: My originals were in good shape so I cleaned them up and will be reusing them.  If you need new ones I would either ask your upholster, if you getting someone to put the top on, or try some of the online upholstery supply houses.

- I didn't need to replace but this is readily available from a number of supply houses, mostly in heavy rubber/plastic as opposed to the original pressboard.

- For the tack rail in the rear bow I have not found anything available the exact size of the original.  The gentleman that will be installing my top gave me a length of what he uses which is a rubber/plastic piece and glued it in with windshield urethane.  The staples supposedly hold better in the plastic than the pressboard.

Here is the basic procedure I followed to disassemble and reassemble.

1. Put the whole top assembly including top and rear window onto the car to verify fit before disassembly.  This was a nerve wracking procedure with a complete painted car.  If I had it to do again I would make sure this step was done before final paint.  I know I put the whole mechanism in my Challenger by myself without the top and window.  This time I did it with a helper and it was difficult.  I assume the top and window attached must have added some complexity.  As it turned out the top had shrunk considerably so I couldn't verify all the fitments.

2. Remove weatherstrips, channels that hold the strips, top, pads, window, cables.  This is where I took almost 150 pictures so I knew how to put it back together. 

3. I marked all bows with a dremel in a spot that would be covered by a pad or tack strip as to their location and orientation.  I also engraved around the bolts holding the header to the side rails.  When I first removed the mechanism years ago I had marked the inner quarter around the body attachment brackets of the side rails.  The adjustments to the body and the header may change but I always like to try and start from where they were.

4. I removed all the bows, bead blasted, and painted.

5. The side rails I chose not to blast as I didn't want to get media in the pivot points.  My mechanism was not particularly rusty, just some surface rust in places, so other than the odd shapes hand sanding wasn't too bad just time consuming.  I also chose not to powder coat for two reasons.  First at each pivot point there is a plastic, presumably nylon, bushing I didn't want to find out how well these would hold up to the powder coat bake out.  Second reason was that I have very spares of any of the parts and didn't want to risk parts getting lost at the powdercoater.  It sound like others have been successful blasting and powder coating.  To paint these I made brackets so I could mount them to my rotisserie in order to paint all the sides easier.

6. After all this I reassembled on the car and fitted the windows.  The one key to the reassembly and fitting is to get the height of the rear bow proper.  Because the rear bow is solidly attached to the rest of the mechanism without the rear curtain attached some tension is required to hold this dimension and be able to latch the top.  I used ropes around the bow and trunk supports with turnbuckles to adjust.

This is the overview of what I did.  Below are some pictures showing the mechanisms on the rotisserie and the irons fitted to the car.  If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask.

Mike Afflerbach

[cudaize]

On rotisserie

[1 Wild R/T]

The rear bow has whats called the tack strip... The other two bows have felt pads in the center with short tack strips on the side to secure the top pads.......  The replacement tack strips made of plastic work ok but according to my upholstery guy some folks have had issues with the upholstery tacks/staples backing out.... Interesting that Cudaize has been told the opposite...  That never happened with the original pressed fiber board material....   If your tack strips aren't to bad you can glue in patches but if they are toast it's best to dig out all the original & start over...  I fixed mine by going to an upholstery shop & buying a sheet of pressed fiberboard which I cut into strips the width of the channel, glue the first strip in & clamp it for an hour then more glue & lay the second strip... It took six strips to fill the channel...

[cudaize]

The replacement tack strips made of plastic work ok but some folks have had issues with the upholstery tacks/staples backing out....

If you are going to get someone to install your top I would see what they recommend or want.  I rebuilt the tack strips that go around the body with door panel material as 1 Wild R/T describes building the tack strip in the rear bow.  My guy insists upon using all plastic tacking strips as he feels the staples hold better in it.  I ended up buying the repro tack strip sets and fitting it to the car.  I'm going to take both with the car and see if he feels comfortable using the originals.