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I used a big, maybe 22mm, wrench for leverage and pulled with all my might. On one side it went perfectly. On the other it marred the plastic end slightly. Both are bent enough to offer full motion though.
I know this is an old post, however, I modified mine today and it was very easy.
I pretty much did was psychoazn did but I added a touch of heat.
I have an RSG roll bar which is pretty much the same thing as the Hard Dog.
Maybe this might help some people:
If you haven't taken the latches off of the car yet, mark around the latch with a pencil so when you put it back you don't have to readjust the hard top
To bend:
1. Use a piece of 1" EMT (Electrical Metallic Tubing) roughly 1.5-2' long
2. Gently hammer the pipe to make it slightly out of round (or squeeze it in the vise), this will allow it to slip over the plastic handle snugly
3. Put a few wraps of tape on the first bend to prevent the vise from scratching it
4. Put a few wraps of tape on the plastic handle to protect it when you're leveraging it
5. This part probably made it the easiest:
When you put the mechanism in the vise and get the pipe on it, don't be afraid to hit it with a propane torch for a bit. It took maybe 30 seconds or so and the handle became slightly more malleable. This allowed for a nice clean bend without putting too much pressure on the plastic part.
I bent my latch a full 90 degrees like psychoazn but you don't need to go too much. I found that its a bit harder to lock the top on now from the new angle but it's a small price to pay to have the hard top working easily with a roll bar.
I should have taken pictures but it literally took a total of 10 min to do once I had the latches off of the car. If anyone really wants, I'll take them off and take some pics of what I did
I know this is an old post, however, I modified mine today and it was very easy.
I pretty much did was psychoazn did but I added a touch of heat.
I have an RSG roll bar which is pretty much the same thing as the Hard Dog.
Maybe this might help some people:
If you haven't taken the latches off of the car yet, mark around the latch with a pencil so when you put it back you don't have to readjust the hard top
To bend:
1. Use a piece of 1" EMT (Electrical Metallic Tubing) roughly 1.5-2' long
2. Gently hammer the pipe to make it slightly out of round (or squeeze it in the vise), this will allow it to slip over the plastic handle snugly
3. Put a few wraps of tape on the first bend to prevent the vise from scratching it
4. Put a few wraps of tape on the plastic handle to protect it when you're leveraging it
5. This part probably made it the easiest:
When you put the mechanism in the vise and get the pipe on it, don't be afraid to hit it with a propane torch for a bit. It took maybe 30 seconds or so and the handle became slightly more malleable. This allowed for a nice clean bend without putting too much pressure on the plastic part.
I bent my latch a full 90 degrees like psychoazn but you don't need to go too much. I found that its a bit harder to lock the top on now from the new angle but it's a small price to pay to have the hard top working easily with a roll bar.
I should have taken pictures but it literally took a total of 10 min to do once I had the latches off of the car. If anyone really wants, I'll take them off and take some pics of what I did
If you haven't taken the latches off of the car yet, mark around the latch with a pencil so when you put it back you don't have to readjust the hard top
Wrap these 2 locations with electrical tape, the bottom will protect from the vise, the top will protect the handle from the leveraging pipe
(note, mine is already done but I took it off to take some pics of how I did it, pretend it's less vertical!)
1" EMT Conduit (inside diameter is 1")
Hammer or vise the end of the conduit so it is slightly out of round to fit the newly taped plastic knob
Put it in a Vise like this:
Where you see the RED tape, that is where I hit it with the torch. Use common sense and caution here.
By heating it here, the heat shouldn't damage the plastic handle. Mine got pretty hot, definitely couldn't handle it for about 10 min after and the handle was fine.
Don't go too crazy, some people have bent these without heat, I just found that annealing it made it that much easier.
(note, VTEC mower in background makes bending easier)
Put the pipe over the handle, push down, and you're done!
I liked that I used electrical tape because any of the tape that burned cracked right off when I was done, it didn't become a mess.
Test fit it a few times because you don't need to bend it a full 90 degrees (I definitely didn't need to)
This really doesn't make a big difference except you loose a bit of torque with them bent so vertical and have to push a bit harder to get the top on.
When you're done, it should come away unharmed and bent at a sharper angle:
If anyone has any questions, definitely let me know! FYI, realigning to the pencil marks worked perfectly
05-02-2016, 05:16 PM
