"The hardtop catchers will only be held in with two bolts instead of two once you remove the soft top".

Sireousrex I'm a little confused, do you mean the hard top catchers will only be held in by 2 bolts instead of 4?

Okay I got the soft top to come out in one peice. In the pictures it shows that the hardtop catchers bolt onto the softtop frame mounted to the cars body. Should I or do I need to take those mounts off the soft top frame and reinstall it to the cars body? From what I understand, I don't need those soft top mounts in order to install the hardtop catchers. Anyways I think I'm on the right track. Thanks guys for your help greatly appreciated.

 

Yeah, 2 instead of 4. Sorry. When you take it apart it will be very obvious what you need and don't need. The "gusset" part that you have to dent in with the punch can be left off after you take the soft top out.

 

I finished installing my hardtop last night, and figured I would add some info here.

Everything went pretty smoothly except that one of the bolts on the passenger side convertible gusset snapped off coming out! It must have been cross threaded at the factory. I spent about 2 hours carefully grinding, drilling, and vacuuming to get the old bolt out, then re-tapped the hole. So be on guard for snafus like that which can de-rail the install. That is a pretty sensitive area to be grinding and drilling, with the potential to drop metal shavings into the convertible top works.

As someone else mentioned, the screws holding the lower roll bar covers were on mega-tight, and I had to use a socket wrench to get them off. It was insane how tight they were. These are the screws behind the hooks (driver's side) and covers (passenger side). They seem to be a self-tapping machine screw. Don't bother with a screwdriver, it will just strip the heads I am sure.

For the step where you bend the corner of the gusset plate, I found that hitting it with a 1/2" piece of round steel bar worked great. Seems like a better choice than a cold chisel or punch (unless you have one with a big flat 1/2" diameter end that is...).

And in case anyone is looking for instructions specific to 2008 models, they can be downloaded here:

http://techinfo.honda.com/rjanisis/pubs/AI/AII38253.pdf

I noticed that the 2008 instructions have been revised a bit, to leave out some of the un-needed steps that are only for early 2000-2001 models. This may be true of other recent model years as well, but the only other instructions I found on the web were for 2002.

 

Thanks for the new info

I will just add that I think you could have saved yourself a ton of hassle by taking a trip down to the local Sears or hardware store and getting an easy-out instead of grinding or drilling.

 

I bought my hardtop used and the windshield latch rattles so I put a thin piece of rubber between the latch and the striker. Could someone please tell me what the difference is between a regular striker and a hardtop striker?

Thanks

 

I am not sure, but it must be the thickness. I put the hardtop strikers in and it tightened up my soft top nicely eliminating the noise. I would say it is well worht the $30-40 it costs.

 

You know, I have an easy-out kit with a small size that would have just barely worked for the M6 bolt, but this bolt was in very crooked (due to a mis-alignment of the gusset and frame it seems). That coupled with the space constraints made me go for the other approach. Easy-outs work great if you can drill and tap into the bolt straight on though.

I need to take a picture of the stub that I extracted after all that work -- almost looked like a heli-coil when I was done with it. Thank god the bolt was so soft and the threaded gusset plate was so hard.

 

As I understand it, newer S2Ks (after 2002/2003 or so -- maybe someone can say for sure) all have the hardtop strikers on from the factory. Apparently they are a harder metal and also snug the top (hard or soft) down more.

If you have rattles, check your strikers and latches for wear. They may have worn into each other a bit, causing the loose fit. If that's the case, you can replace the problem part or just go with that rubber fix you're using.

My hardtop came with un-needed strikers, and might offer them for sale at some point. Then again, it might be good to keep them around as spares.

 

I didn;t use the included strikers when I originally installed my top and thought about selling them. good thing I never did because they wear out eventually and I ended up using them.

 

can everyone please tell me how long it took you guys to install the hard top?

dealer is quoting me 3 hours @ $90/hour.

thanks,

Eric