So, I received my replica mugen hardtop about 2 months ago from a vendor on here. Not going to bring them into it as I do no believe they are to blame for the noise. I have tried almost everything to get rid of this constant rattle/creaking with my hardtop.

-Various pressures when bolting it down
-New rear brackets
-Greasing the rear seal on the car
-Greasing the rear seal on the hardtop
-Making a soft gasket to sit in between the rear brackets and the hardtop

What I found out was the rear seal, specifically on the sides (behind the windows) was actually creating the noise. If I took the hardtop off the car and pushed down hard on the seal I could get a noise very similar out of the seal. I then pryed up as much of the seal right behind the window as I could and shoved some grease in there. I did this for both sides. Took it for a test drive and no noise (thank god!!).

Then after about an hourish of driving the noise slowly came back into full effect. Last night I tore everything back apart again and greased under the seal as best as I could and still even this morning driving to work it was quieter, but still present.

Has anyone else ever had this issue with the rear body seal like this? I am guessing I will have to take the entire interior apart to pull the seal off and grease under it and put it back on. Any writeup for the actual removal of that seal? I have seen a few writeups for soft top removal that show it in there, but nothing specifically for that.

 

I also want to throw out there that I am using my OEM soft top strikers and latches from my MY07 with about 67K on the car.

I have a set of Izzy front hardtop brackets but have not put them on. I am not sure if the front not being pulled down all the way would affect the rear seal rattle in the back?

My latches and strikers seem to pull down pretty good as they are now. But I could be mistaken.