Best way to repair big slash in roof

[wks5]

Hi guys,

I've been a victim of roof slashing in my own supposedly "secure" garage of my apartment block. BS!!! And guess what they took? an e-tag and some burnt cds. DHs!!!

Anyway, has anybody DIY a big slash (50cms) in their roof before. Any advice on the best method???

Otherwise anyboday know of a good but cheap person i can send my car too? How much is a new roof? about 1k with glass sound right???

Thanks guys

[Mr Morlock]

This subject was done very recently - I think Mazda Mandi raised it. If you cannot afford shelling out up to $1K then secondhand or a trimmer may be able to help and save you some $$ You better mention what city you are in.

[Jimmy]

Insurance?

[Garry]

Have a chat to Patrick

http://mx5cartalk.com/phpBB-3.0.2/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=32665

[Juffa]

Bummer.

I noticed a glass window soft top up for grabs on ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/mazda-mx5-1999-s ... dZViewItem

If it includes the roof frame it would be a straight swap with your roof.

Good luck.

J

[Mr Morlock]

The problems with insurance is that you probably pay the excess and then run the chance of an increased premium.

[Jimmy]

I asked that very thing before making my claim Mr Morlock. I got away with paying only $500 in excess (should have been $750) and they aren't going to touch my premium. I reckon it's still worth a call to at least to find out.

[Benny]

It's really not too difficult to fix a slash in the roof of a 5, especially if it just has the standard, vinyl top.

What you do is bring the 2 pieces together, which may mean undoing the clips on the header rail and jiggling the top so that you can get the 2 pieces to meet without stertching.
Then, using black heavy thread, hand sew the 2 pieces together. It doesn't matter if your sewing is perfect or not, it's just to hold it all together.
For the finale, you can either use 2 pieces of black, waterproof gaffer tape and put one piece on the top and the other inside making sure you cover the 2 ends of the rip, prefferably with one piece of tape per side.
If you want a neater looking job, look up the yellow pages and find a mobile vinyl welder, and he'll come around to your place and high-frequency weld up the rip. The sewing is still important though, as this is really the only thing that will hold it all together.
If you just weld it without the sewing, as the fabric backing has been torn, the vinyl will loose all of its strength and just rip apart again.

I've done this myself, on more than one occasion, and if you find a decent welder, you'll be hard pressed to pick out where the repair was made.

If your roof is on it's last legs however and it tears easily, then you'll have to replace the top.

[wks5]

hey guys

cool thanks for the tips

firstly, in sydney.

yeah like you said with insurance - its the excess which already is a killer. i'm trying to claim it under my strata insurance since my car was parked in my apartment basement carpark and the garage door has been malfunctioning.

With you advice in mind. I'm leaning towards sewing it and gaffa taping in on the inside so it doesn't stand out so much as a temp option, until i decide on what to do next. Yeah 1k is a bit hefty for a new roof at the moment.

My roof was in really good condition besides the slash. It had been replaced by the previous owner only only a few years ago and has never seen that my sun as it has always been garaged since.

Anyway. Cheers. thanks again.

[Mr Morlock]

If you want to do it well you take it to a trimmer and see if a panel can be sewn in neatly. Hand sewing never has the consistency of an industrial sewing machine. Never tried welding - cannot comment on its effectiveness. You need a trimmer who is familiar with "rag tops" and who can provide the right type of vinyl coated fabric. There will be trimmers in Sydney who can do this work. Aust Classic Cars will probably list them if you do not have some mates to recommend someone.