Busy weekend Installing the new top..

green_comet · Postby **green_comet** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 8:19 pm

Hey all,

Well my dad and I have been busy over the weekend removing the old stuffed vinyl top, and replacing it with the new stayfast one.

New stayfast top.

I recieved my stayfast top from USA friday arvo, and we started with the fun saturday morning. The interior was stripped, rollbar, deck carpet, plastic panels, seats etc. I decided to remove the frame from the car, as its seemed to be easier to get to all the rivets, screws, and clips that way. Removing the old top off the frame was very easy, just a few screws, and rivets then off it came.

Installing the new one however was a bit tricky, it took about 4 hours for us to fit it to the frame, with a few problems along the way (I dislocated my thumb :oops:

), but we got there eventually. By 11:00pm saturday night we had the old top off the frame, and the new one installed on the frame ready to go in. It was time for sleep, and alot more ice for my thumb.

This morning we were at it again, we connected the old rain rail to the top, and repaired a few cracks in it. Now it was time for the install, it was a bit of a pain getting 2 of the clips onto the rain rail, but after about 30min and a few swear words it was done. I then bolted in the rain rail retainers, and started to stretch... I mean stretch the top forward so it could latch in. After about 30min of pulling it forward slowly, we were able to latch it into position. It is very very tight at the moment, so im hoping it will stretch out over the next few days. Other than that I am extremely happy with how things went.

Heres a few pics of it done, and ready for the interior bits to get installed.

Cheers
Ryan

JBT · Postby **JBT** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 8:40 pm

Excellent work. Just leave the top up for a week and get some sun (heat) on it and all should be good in the stretching department.

Fatty · Postby **Fatty** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 9:18 pm

looking good ryan! nice work.

Andrew · Postby **Andrew** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 9:39 pm

Group Buy

Looks great Ryan

wun911 · Postby **wun911** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 9:45 pm

Dam thats nice work...

RaYmO · Postby **RaYmO** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 10:05 pm

Nice one Ryan

Looks like hightower from police academy could fit inside your ride with the seats ripped out

green_comet · Postby **green_comet** » Sun Jan 20, 2008 10:55 pm

Thanks for the kind words guys..

Ill take a couple final pics when the top is all clean, and the car is back together.

Im interested to know if anyone can recommend some good products for it. Looks like I need to get a cloth top cleaner, and protectant.

Any suggestions?

TieNN89 · Postby **TieNN89** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 1:43 am

i was recommended the 303 protect or something from Autobarn

noticed a lot of members on miata.net uses it

just wondering did you rivet or some how screw the rain rail to your new top?

green_comet · Postby **green_comet** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 10:54 am

AZNTieN wrote:just wondering did you rivet or some how screw the rain rail to your new top?

We used stainless rivets, with 2 small stainless washers. It seems to have worked very well.

Steampunk · Postby **Steampunk** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 11:00 am

good work Ryan, looks so tight that rain will simply bounce off it.

Is it vinyl or fabric? I can't tell from your pics, but the fabric ones are so classy.

green_comet · Postby **green_comet** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 12:12 pm

It is stayfast fabric.. I would have liked a glass window, but I have an NA brown davis bar which wont allow me to use one.

Also I forgot to add that my rocker cover needed some new paint, as the black crinkle paint had started to flake off. I decided to spray it with red crinkle this time, it looks very SE... :mrgreen:

Juffa · Postby **Juffa** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 2:09 pm

Looks good Ryan. I have a Robbins cloth (canvas) soft top on mine. There is a specific protectant for cloth roofs. 303 is for vinyl.

I had a NB Brown Davis roll bar, but found that the glass window in the Robbins roof was too wide for the roll bar, so I sold the roll bar.

J

TieNN89 · Postby **TieNN89** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 11:43 pm

green_comet wrote:
AZNTieN wrote:just wondering did you rivet or some how screw the rain rail to your new top?

We used stainless rivets, with 2 small stainless washers. It seems to have worked very well.

cause i read on some of the post on miata.net and they reckon theres no need to rivet or screw the rain rail to the top

apparently it was to speed up the production or something

green_comet · Postby **green_comet** » Tue Jan 22, 2008 10:53 am

AZNTieN wrote:
green_comet wrote:
AZNTieN wrote:just wondering did you rivet or some how screw the rain rail to your new top?

We used stainless rivets, with 2 small stainless washers. It seems to have worked very well.

cause i read on some of the post on miata.net and they reckon theres no need to rivet or screw the rain rail to the top

apparently it was to speed up the production or something

Yeah you can get away without attaching it to the top, but I didnt want to just incase it leaked. It took us about 20min to rivet the top to the rain rail, soo its not that big of an issue. I would rather spend 20min riveting the top, then install it all and find out the roof leaks, or dosnt sit right.

wun911 · Postby **wun911** » Wed Jan 23, 2008 1:52 pm

Is this the type of hood where you can unzip the rear plastic window?

Dam I like that paint job aswell where did you get the heat resistnt crinkle paint from???