mx5cartalk.com

so angry.
what's a new one worth again?

How bad is the rip and what is the general condition of the roof? If the roof condition is good it might be worth having a auto trimmer repairing it. I had this done on a previous 5. You could barely tell that it had been fixed. I think it cost me around $80 to have a 6 inch tear fixed, about 6 years ago.

J

Depends. On ebay your looking between 5-900 not inclusive of postage, but im not sure if thats with or without railing, i doubt it.

i should've elaborated on initial post. was pretty angry.
it's about a 8" rip just above wear the zip meets the round corner on the passenger side. zip jammed a bit as i was doing up the back window and riiiiiiiiiiiip. the tear is not just a torn seam, it's probably 3mm off the seam in the fabric.
roof is excellent, back (plastic) window is shit-house though. need to try a more abrasive version of Plast-X on it. that's a story for another time.
there actually isn't an auto trimmer in my shithole town anymore, so would mean heading to melbourne probably.
i have been wanting to remove soft-top and go perma-hardtop, lowest price i've heard is $700 for one needing a spray (would DIY it matt black).
anyone done this (ditch soft-top altogether)? pros and cons? i only ever really use the softness of the top for letting the rear window section down for airflow (won't do this anymore, not until i repair/replace anyway)
being a token broke teenager after months of being mr. overpayed industrial scaffolder, it'll be a pretty long time before i'll be able to rectify this anyway.
the roof shouldn't leak, unless water wises up and works out a way to defy gravity (rip is above overlap of roof>window section).
anyone willing to donate a hardtop?

Mine ripped in a similar place to yours by the sounds of it, I was doing the back window up and the zipped ripped away from the top. I got some wax coated thread from a leather shop and my wife stitched it up for me. It's now as good as new.

I had a similar thing happen this week. The back window had started seperating from the zipper. On one side it was actually where the original thread was which gave way since the vinyl was getting old and weak. And on the other side it had ripped just near the window (on the black frame part). It was basically hanging by a thread and then it just all fell apart when I was driving with the windows down.

So I went to Lincraft and bought a hand held sowing machine, black cotton, thread and fabric glue.

Cost about $30 all up but took me 6 hours to fix it with my girlfriend helping me. Most of it was sowed back together with extra pieces of fabric but in some parts I had to glue the fabric to the window frame.

Looks pretty sh*t from the inside but you cant really tell from the outside. I can post up some pics later.

Ivan

It's amazing what can be repaired with some black duct tape and a bit of hand sewing...........