Convertible top swap
03-18-2010, 09:38 PM
#1
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: NJ
Posts: 4
Convertible top swap
Ok, I have two convertible Mustang GTs, one is an 87 and the other a 90. The 90 is a parts car that got hit but what remains is in excellent condition. My 87 is an ugly, but functioning toy. The 90 has a beautiful convertible top in great shape with a good back window. My 87 has a decent top with a superficial tear near the back window. The big problem is the window broke the other day during a storm.
I know removing the top from the frame is a HUGE job, not one I really wanna do, but what about removing the entire top and frame as a unit and transferring it from one car to the other? I got the parts car for a steal and the top is much nicer than mine. I want to put this top on my 87. What do I have to look forward too? My chiltons manual says nothing about the procedure to remove the entire top and frame so I am going to wing it. It seems a big waste to just ignore the top on the parts car and go dump a grand or so on a professional top replacement. Please help!
I know removing the top from the frame is a HUGE job, not one I really wanna do, but what about removing the entire top and frame as a unit and transferring it from one car to the other? I got the parts car for a steal and the top is much nicer than mine. I want to put this top on my 87. What do I have to look forward too? My chiltons manual says nothing about the procedure to remove the entire top and frame so I am going to wing it. It seems a big waste to just ignore the top on the parts car and go dump a grand or so on a professional top replacement. Please help!
03-19-2010, 08:12 PM
#2
1st Gear Member
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Florida
Posts: 147
JP, this week I just finished taking a '90 Stang convertible and replacing top, window and pads. This project of yours is definitely possible, however there are certain things I think you should think about:
1. Unbolting the top frame and convertible cover and manhandling it to the other car might require 3 guys to keep the frame from causing damage to the paint or body.
2. Don't assume the bolts will go back together properly. It is common for the studs and nuts to be severely rusted so they are weaker. I broke off 2 studs coming out of the convertible well when tightening back up. Also, the floating bolts at the end of the tacking bar at the bottom of the back window are incredibly frustrating to take both off and back on.
3. So,,,,, my advice is to have several buddies help. Don't start the project if you need to drive the car soon. You might plan on the project taking 3 times longer than you think it will. Hope it is a cake walk and have plenty of adult beverages around if it isn't to umm help you figure out how to fix it.
Scan
1. Unbolting the top frame and convertible cover and manhandling it to the other car might require 3 guys to keep the frame from causing damage to the paint or body.
2. Don't assume the bolts will go back together properly. It is common for the studs and nuts to be severely rusted so they are weaker. I broke off 2 studs coming out of the convertible well when tightening back up. Also, the floating bolts at the end of the tacking bar at the bottom of the back window are incredibly frustrating to take both off and back on.
3. So,,,,, my advice is to have several buddies help. Don't start the project if you need to drive the car soon. You might plan on the project taking 3 times longer than you think it will. Hope it is a cake walk and have plenty of adult beverages around if it isn't to umm help you figure out how to fix it.
Scan
03-19-2010, 08:25 PM
#3
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: NJ
Posts: 4
Ok, I was planning on waiting a few days for a response to my inquiry but I got a free day off today and it was 70 and sunny. I originally planned on removing all of my interior and replacing it with the stuff from my parts car. I removed the front seats, rear seats, door panels and rear side panels. I planned to remove the carpet and swap that as well and put everything back together but I hit a snag. I lost my torx bit that is the correct size for the seatbelt bolts so the carpet is still there.
Being way too lazy to stop working and go get a replacement bit, I decided to look at what it was going to take to remove the entire convertible top, frame and all, and swap it with the one on my parts car. A little background, my 87 GT Vert is a little ugly and the back window got broken the other day. It needs paint work and it has a bad door and trunklid. I was looking for replacements and I found a nice parts car which is a 90 GT Vert and got it cheap. I used the trunklid already and was going to swap the doors and the interior since they are pretty nice (the 90 was a wrecked car). I came up with this idea to switch the entire roof instead of paying to have mine replaced and a search of this forum and the rest of the net proved nada for my car.
Today, motivated by the nice weather, I got daring and removed my bad top for the swap. It took around three hours to get removed and I figured I would put some of the experiences in this thread in case somebody else was thinking of trying the same thing. This is my first attempt to put a large pile of info on an internet thread and I am definetly NO expert. This is my first convertible ever and my first Mustang. I joined this forum because it seemed the most complete. So here it goes.
I started this project by removing my seats and door panels. As admitted above, I did this to replace the interior but got sidelined by a tool issue. I found it was necessary to remove the rear seats and the side panels (although I just moved mine, damn seatbelts) in order to do this job. I would recommend taking the fronts out as it was nice to have all of the space to work. The fronts are four bolts a piece and one electrical connector on power lumbar seats. Undo them and they are free to be put aside.
The side panels are removed with a series of phillips head screws. I think there is four or five but mine had a few missing. One phillips head held in each power window button bezel which has to come off to get the switch out. You can then unbolt the seatbelt and remove or just pull the belt and move the panel out of the way. Then I worked on the seat. The rear seat bottom is removed with pressure from your knee toward the back of the car. This pops the rear seat out of the clip so it can be removed. There are two bolts below the rear seat back that need to be removed and they are at each end of the seat. Once they are removed, you can pull up on the rear seat back and away it goes too.
Now I had great access to my pump and all of the bolts I needed to remove. It also gives access to the power window motors in the rear and one of mine is weak. It will be replaced tomorrow. Here is where the fun starts. From inside the car, there are several phillips head screws that hold fabric, I would call it a skirt but I don't know the official term, to the car. Once these are removed you can see a bunch of studs going around the entire inside of the car where the top is held in with nuts. Some of the nuts had rectangular pieces of metal that acted like washers.
This is the stuff that has to come out. I started by undoing all of the nuts across the back of the car and in the corners. This allowed the rear window curtain to come free from the car. I then unzipped my window curtain (with no window!) from the top and removed it from the car. I contemplated stopping here because I had lots of trial and error removing things to get to this point and it did NOT go as quick and smooth as I type this. But a small, superficial rip and general fade to my top made me press on.
I finished removing all of the nuts and I marked the studs with a paint marker to remember which ones had rectangles. Once the nuts were off, I could pop the top off of the car. That was pretty much it to get the back of the top away from the car, or so I thought. More on that later.
I found a bracket that held the main convertible top frame to the structure of the car. It had three nuts that were toward the outside wall of the car and several more that were toward the front. After removing these, and cursing a ton, I couldn't figure out how to remove it further. Then I saw a rouge nut all the way down near the floor of the car also facing front. As soon as I removed it, the top started to move. It hung up on this last stud and I found that the bracket that the stud went through was removeable with two additional nuts. I removed this and that side was ready to come out. I repeated the process on the driver's side and it was ready to remove too.
At this point, I wished that I had taken the lines off of the hydraulic lifts on each side because that is what now tethered my top to my car. I rectified this by disconnecting the lines from the pump and removing the entire assembly as a whole. I needed to pull a couple of looms that held the lines to the car out and the top was free, sort of. There was one final piece I forgot and that was the cover (again no technical term here) that goes between the rear seat and trunk. This has a metal rail that runs perpendicular to the car and has screws that secure it. I removed the (phillips) screws and this piece came free. Pretty easy but my top was ratty.
SAFETY: I, very stupidly, was doing this job solo while actually watching my 4 year old. Being the impatient type of person I am, I decided to pick the top up myself. It is pretty heavy and awkward but I thought I could handle it. That could not be further from the truth. The top can, and will, collapse on you and it hurts....bad. I have a skin tear on one thumb and a swollen forearm on the opposite side that proves it. Not to mention, you will most likely scratch the hell out of your Mustang's trunklid and quarter panel. Be much smarter than me, get a friend to help you pull the top out and put the new one in.
That is pretty much it for removal. Just a few points to mention, my car had no glass in the back window as it was shattered days ago. That probably makes a difference. I did this with the top most of the way closed and unlatched from the windshield. From inside the car, all of the nuts are pretty accessible and relatively easy to remove. If you start by removing the nuts in the rear, you can probably change the rear curtain pretty easily if you break a window or something. Keep in mind, my top was old and I didn't have to worry about breaking the window, mine was broken already. I will probably tape and cover the rear window of the good top when I remove that and complete the swap.
I am in no way a professional mechanic or a body guy. I needed to use 3/8 and 1/2 in ratchets, a couple of wrenches and a phillips head screwdriver for the top and the interior parts. I would suggest giving yourself two days to do this at least not so much because of the time it takes but because I was tired when I was done. I did not take pictures because of all of the trial and error I did to get the information above. I will try and take some of the removal from my other car but they will show the top only. The rear seats are already out of the car as are the rear panels. If it all works, I will post it here and hopefully it hopes somebody else out. Wish me luck, I am going to try and finish this swap tomorrow and maybe even get the interior switched out too.
Thanks for all the info on this site, I lurk around a bit but this is my first thread here.
Being way too lazy to stop working and go get a replacement bit, I decided to look at what it was going to take to remove the entire convertible top, frame and all, and swap it with the one on my parts car. A little background, my 87 GT Vert is a little ugly and the back window got broken the other day. It needs paint work and it has a bad door and trunklid. I was looking for replacements and I found a nice parts car which is a 90 GT Vert and got it cheap. I used the trunklid already and was going to swap the doors and the interior since they are pretty nice (the 90 was a wrecked car). I came up with this idea to switch the entire roof instead of paying to have mine replaced and a search of this forum and the rest of the net proved nada for my car.
Today, motivated by the nice weather, I got daring and removed my bad top for the swap. It took around three hours to get removed and I figured I would put some of the experiences in this thread in case somebody else was thinking of trying the same thing. This is my first attempt to put a large pile of info on an internet thread and I am definetly NO expert. This is my first convertible ever and my first Mustang. I joined this forum because it seemed the most complete. So here it goes.
I started this project by removing my seats and door panels. As admitted above, I did this to replace the interior but got sidelined by a tool issue. I found it was necessary to remove the rear seats and the side panels (although I just moved mine, damn seatbelts) in order to do this job. I would recommend taking the fronts out as it was nice to have all of the space to work. The fronts are four bolts a piece and one electrical connector on power lumbar seats. Undo them and they are free to be put aside.
The side panels are removed with a series of phillips head screws. I think there is four or five but mine had a few missing. One phillips head held in each power window button bezel which has to come off to get the switch out. You can then unbolt the seatbelt and remove or just pull the belt and move the panel out of the way. Then I worked on the seat. The rear seat bottom is removed with pressure from your knee toward the back of the car. This pops the rear seat out of the clip so it can be removed. There are two bolts below the rear seat back that need to be removed and they are at each end of the seat. Once they are removed, you can pull up on the rear seat back and away it goes too.
Now I had great access to my pump and all of the bolts I needed to remove. It also gives access to the power window motors in the rear and one of mine is weak. It will be replaced tomorrow. Here is where the fun starts. From inside the car, there are several phillips head screws that hold fabric, I would call it a skirt but I don't know the official term, to the car. Once these are removed you can see a bunch of studs going around the entire inside of the car where the top is held in with nuts. Some of the nuts had rectangular pieces of metal that acted like washers.
This is the stuff that has to come out. I started by undoing all of the nuts across the back of the car and in the corners. This allowed the rear window curtain to come free from the car. I then unzipped my window curtain (with no window!) from the top and removed it from the car. I contemplated stopping here because I had lots of trial and error removing things to get to this point and it did NOT go as quick and smooth as I type this. But a small, superficial rip and general fade to my top made me press on.
I finished removing all of the nuts and I marked the studs with a paint marker to remember which ones had rectangles. Once the nuts were off, I could pop the top off of the car. That was pretty much it to get the back of the top away from the car, or so I thought. More on that later.
I found a bracket that held the main convertible top frame to the structure of the car. It had three nuts that were toward the outside wall of the car and several more that were toward the front. After removing these, and cursing a ton, I couldn't figure out how to remove it further. Then I saw a rouge nut all the way down near the floor of the car also facing front. As soon as I removed it, the top started to move. It hung up on this last stud and I found that the bracket that the stud went through was removeable with two additional nuts. I removed this and that side was ready to come out. I repeated the process on the driver's side and it was ready to remove too.
At this point, I wished that I had taken the lines off of the hydraulic lifts on each side because that is what now tethered my top to my car. I rectified this by disconnecting the lines from the pump and removing the entire assembly as a whole. I needed to pull a couple of looms that held the lines to the car out and the top was free, sort of. There was one final piece I forgot and that was the cover (again no technical term here) that goes between the rear seat and trunk. This has a metal rail that runs perpendicular to the car and has screws that secure it. I removed the (phillips) screws and this piece came free. Pretty easy but my top was ratty.
SAFETY: I, very stupidly, was doing this job solo while actually watching my 4 year old. Being the impatient type of person I am, I decided to pick the top up myself. It is pretty heavy and awkward but I thought I could handle it. That could not be further from the truth. The top can, and will, collapse on you and it hurts....bad. I have a skin tear on one thumb and a swollen forearm on the opposite side that proves it. Not to mention, you will most likely scratch the hell out of your Mustang's trunklid and quarter panel. Be much smarter than me, get a friend to help you pull the top out and put the new one in.
That is pretty much it for removal. Just a few points to mention, my car had no glass in the back window as it was shattered days ago. That probably makes a difference. I did this with the top most of the way closed and unlatched from the windshield. From inside the car, all of the nuts are pretty accessible and relatively easy to remove. If you start by removing the nuts in the rear, you can probably change the rear curtain pretty easily if you break a window or something. Keep in mind, my top was old and I didn't have to worry about breaking the window, mine was broken already. I will probably tape and cover the rear window of the good top when I remove that and complete the swap.
I am in no way a professional mechanic or a body guy. I needed to use 3/8 and 1/2 in ratchets, a couple of wrenches and a phillips head screwdriver for the top and the interior parts. I would suggest giving yourself two days to do this at least not so much because of the time it takes but because I was tired when I was done. I did not take pictures because of all of the trial and error I did to get the information above. I will try and take some of the removal from my other car but they will show the top only. The rear seats are already out of the car as are the rear panels. If it all works, I will post it here and hopefully it hopes somebody else out. Wish me luck, I am going to try and finish this swap tomorrow and maybe even get the interior switched out too.
Thanks for all the info on this site, I lurk around a bit but this is my first thread here.
03-19-2010, 08:27 PM
#4
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: NJ
Posts: 4
Scan, I must have been typing my reply while you were answering my question. I unfortunately found ALL of that crap out today over the period of about 4 to 5 hours. This is a fun car, not a daily driver so I can take as long as I want. The top removal wasn't as bad as I thought but it takes a while to get all of the junk out of the way to start addressing the top itself. Thanks!
04-02-2010, 12:08 AM
#7
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: colorado
Posts: 20
i also did this the other day to my 90 vert . it wasnt too bad exept for the fact that i did it at night outside using my phone as a flashlight lol . my top was shredded already so i wasnt too worried about tearing it or anything but like you said it still would have been alot easier with another person to help lift it.
anyways, you did a good job writing this , i dont think you left anything out.
anyways, you did a good job writing this , i dont think you left anything out.
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