Subw00er

Anyone else have this problem? I have a new hardtop on a 2002 and it squeaks when the body is shifted a bit - like when entering a turn hard or when I go over the bump at the end of my driveway. I bought some shinetsu grease thinking this may lube it up a bit and maye the noise subside, but it only made it worse actually.

Is there a fix for this? Is my hardtop secured well enough via the rear attachment points - that is, should I lower them a few MM to make the top sit tighter? Anyone fix the noise problem before?

I should note that the sound is only bad when its cold here. I live upstate NY and its been in the 30's degF recently. When its warmer, I only hear the squeaking at the bottom of my driveway. Any advice appreciated. Thanks.

Subw00er

ps - I tried searching the forums, but it doesnt seem to be working?!

revto9k

sorry to hear that, maybe adjust the brackets a little bit would help? If you loose the bolts on those brackets (the size ones), there is a lota room for adjustmant you can play with

dozen5

i think your hardtop may actually be on too tight.

when i first got mine, i played with the adjustments on the hardtop itself. i first put it loose as possible. that made it leak like hell. then i made it sit as low as it could. no leak but creaked like hell. you gotta find a medium that you're suitable with.

so what i did was loosen the bolts on the hardtop. then use the handle as a way to control how much the top will be "caught" on the side catchers. the more open the handle the tighter it gets when you finally latch it. good luck

R11

I purposely adjusted mine as low down and close to the rear deck as possible just because it looks much better and more integrated that way. I immediately found that as low as I had it, something was causing fairly major noise in the back. Closer inspection showed that the inside plastic trim pieces that go around the bottom of the rear window on the HT were rubbing on the square rubber trim piece that goes along the front edge (and along the sides) of the rear deck.

Not really wanting to mount the HT higher, I pulled if back off, removed the plastic pieces from below the window and trimmed about a 1/4 inch off the back edges all the way from one corner to the other using tin snips. I was a bit concerned because the trimming removed the little rounded bead edge and I didn't' want them to lose any rigidity but they seem to be none the worse for wear. Now when the roof is installed and set down low, the back edges of the trim pieces still have a nice little gap between them and the rubber deck edge all the way around. No more noise from the back and nice, tight, low, nearly stock-coupe look.

This year after slathering the silicone grease on the weather stripping, I also put some self-adhesive felt pieces inside the front latch strikers right where the points from the latches hit, and made sure to latch them first before clamping down the side catchers. So far (knocking on wood here), virtually no noise from the header area yet either! I don't want to jinx myself, but for the moment I'm a happy camper .


ron

mad-dog-one

Did you put the shinet-su grease where the rubber seals on the top come into contact with the car. This solved my squeeking problems and they have never come back.

koala

Might need to replace the strikers. I just replaced my strikers today with the specific "hardtop strikers" and all of my squeaks are completely gone.

They're available from hardtopguy.com

Subw00er

I think my hardtop came with strikers but I didnt put them on because it seemed to fit fine and latch ok, if perhaps a little loose. Its definitely more resistance to latch the soft top than my hard top.. Maybe I'll try that first as it seems easiest..

I did spread the grease on there, mad-dog.

Perhaps it is on too tight. I recall when I put in the metal attachment points (behind the trim panels) - I noticed there was a bit of play. I tightened it exactly in the center - that is the bolt heads are in the center of the recessed area of the attachment blocks.

Hey R11, can you show pictures of that part you snipped? Its not clear to me..

zameoj

Also to help with rattle/squeaks you should lock the rear of the hardtop before latching the strikers.

....I thought I was the only Sebring Silver with a Hardtop in upstate NY..

R11

Well, the top's on the car now for another couple months so there's no real way to get a decent pic. It's the inside trim pieces around the bottom of the back window on the HT. I just trimmed off the back edges (1/4") so they wouldn't touch the rubber trim piece that surrounds the soft top well when the HT is adjusted all the way down low. I also took a couple black wire twist ties and twisted down the soft top latch hooks to keep them from bouncing around and making noise when going over bigger bumps in the road too.


ron