soft/hardtop latches

[DOYLMX5]

Hi guys,

I know that this has been on this forum before but I can't find it again.

I need to know how to fix some latches as the ones I have have been worn to buggery.

By worn out I mean the bit that is meant to stop it from opening has worn down and doesn't stop it anymore. You can open it without pressing in the button.

Another problem I have is I don't feel that the hardtop is being pulled down enough. The latches just sort of keep it from coming off rather than keeping everything pulled together.

Thanks in advance for all of your advice.

Jason

[JBT]

Latch repair


Fourth post down for latch adjustment

[DOYLMX5]

Thanks for the info,
however it doesn't really help me.
That would be for it the two points contact and just slide over eachother where on mine, the two points literally *just* manage to touch.

I saw a thread on this forum about 6 months ago or so and the method included welding. any ideas about that?

[Alex]

the hardtop isn't that hard to tighten
you can just put the latches in the open position and there is a visible thread with a turnable centre and a plastic position lock, pull down the position lock and twist the thread in the desired direction (tighter/looser) then push the plastic back and see how it latches now.
after this you can also tighten up the rear chrome ones as well which are on the back near the boot, just one screw and the chrome cover swings free, loosen the slider and move it towards the front of the car, then tighten back up, close chrome cover and all done

[DOYLMX5]

The hardtop is from an original 1990 mx5 so it if fairly stretched.
all latches are already set to as tight as possible (I made sure of that)

The problem that I want to fix is that the latch just...opens.
It is like the large bit that you pull on to open the latch sits too high and too forward. It also seems that the part that says \"push\" is so worn down that the amount of contact is so minimal that it wouldn't matter how much friction was on there, it would still slip right past.

This is not really a huge problem for me at the moment considering I am not using them.
I want to recondition them so that I can put the soft top back on.

I do remember seeing instructions on how to fix them (did require some welding) a fair while ago (within a year) but the search on this site only seems to go back a few months ??

[JBT]

I assume my reply on the 16 June was worthless then.

Try this. Picture links are gone. But you'll get the idea if you look at the first link in my last post.

Search Miata net otherwise.