Hi everyone,

so seeing a few threads about hard tops lately got me thinking...i know theres a ton of different tops & colors out there and its a tough decision. what if we hard top owners held a small local meet and brought our tops out? we could move them form car to car so we could see different color combos & types on different cars and help out our fellow S2K'ers. we could do things like let people check clearances of cages, fitment, visibility, color like black on yellow, black on silver...well really black vs color matched on any car...and a few other little nuances of owning a hard top.

what ya think?


I have an OEM Silverstone that id be willing to bring out and let someone set on their car for a bit to see if they liked it or not.

any takers?

 

Wouldn't that require them to have the catchers if you wanted to test fit other non ht equipped cars?

GPW ht here.

 

thats what im not 100% sure of. my car had a HT from the factory/day it was picked up from the dealer so im not sure whats in there stock.

i would think you could just set it on there if the car does not have the rear strikers and just let it sit. or, we could just move em from car to car that has the strikers installed.

anyone know definitively?

 

The catchers would help, and the correct interior pieces, the hardtop locks / locking pins. <----- if not, you might have a hard time putting them on.

 

At the very least you'd need to take the stock brushes off, since the HT-brushes have an opening for the HT studs to drop through.

 

I'm in on this idea! I would love to see how a Carbon Mugen Hard top would look on my New Formula Red in person.

 

Suzuka w a black oem top here. I'm game.

 

You think I'd have tried this by now, but it takes more than one person to remove and install the hard top. Man I need to do the DIY lift..... I got an OEM black CR top if anyone needs that for reference

 

i made a lift/hoist in my garage and i have to say its the most dangerous thing i ever did.

i used some rope and a set of 5, double pulleys. gave me a ton of mechanical advantage but i had to pull like a hundred feet of rope.

I used some angle iron from lowes that has all those holes pre-drilled then mounted the pulleys to that. using double nutted bolts. I tied off one end ofthe rope also the the bracket and wove it through a few of the holes in the iron in case it slipped it would have some opportunity to catch on another hole. The angle iron was drilled into the keep beam of the garage which happened to be "glue-lam" which i guess is stronger than normal wood. i drove about 12 screws into it and each was about 5-6inches long. didnt want to risk anything.

for the lift portion, i used a wide and long piece of PVC pipe that is the thicker type and ran it across the top width wise. it "hooked" where the windows curved. I also put T's on the end of the pipe to keep it from slipping out from under the top. there was a rope on either side of the cross beam tied to a central point above the roof. to attach that i used an add-a-link

for the "thong strap" i used a piece of rope from the cross beam, under the glass and up to where all the other ropes came together on a giant add-a-link.

once everything was in place, i lifted the top as high as it would go, locked it in place by tieing off the rope on a screw eye that i had drilled into a stud, backed the car under it and slowly lowered it.


if i ever had to do it again, id use a cheap electric winch bolted to the wall with the cable running through eye bolts. that way it would be simpler. and instead of using rope id use flat straps like seatbelt material for all lift points rather than PVC. my issue was cost driven.

 

YES! Since my car isn't equipped with hardtop H/W I'd prob just be looking but I'd like to see them in person to gauge fit, quality, etc. I'm in.