Here's what I did with my Parrish top:
- Replaced the lower hook part of the turnbuckles with a longer eye bolt
(luckily the lower half is right-hand thread)
- Replaced one of the countersunk soft-top hinge mounting screws on each
side with machine screws I found that have a cylindrical, knurled head with
a hex socket, and adjusted these using a jam nut so the new lower
turnbuckle eye can slip over. This works with the hardtop in place, but
now in the winter I remove the soft top so there's more room inside the
car. When I do this I put large fender washers behind the adjusting nut
since the soft top hinge mount isn't there any more.
For the front mount, I was hesitant to put a bolt through the windshield
frame. I ended up using 2 spare soft top latches. All I had to do was
slightly "keyhole" the hole in the hardtop to get the horizontal pin on the
soft top latch through. This is WAY faster than bolting. I can have the
hardtop off or on in easily half the time it takes to erect the soft top.
I don't have any kind of seal between the hard top and windshield frame,
but I've never had a leak from there even in driving rain. The turnbuckles
do really cinch things down. There is a rubber seal around the rear bottom
of the hardtop (sort of a rubber u-channel that attaches to the top with
friction and some plastic pegs, with a flap that extends to the outside),
as well as rubber window frame seals.
My explanation may be a bit hard to follow, so if I get a chance later I'll
post some pictures to a website.
At 12:03 AM 1/3/2004, Michael Corbitt wrote:
>The TR6 I purchased last summer came with a Parrish style hardtop. The
>only mounting hardware it came with are two turnbuckles for cinching down
>the rear sides. There was no hardware for mounting the front edge to the
>windshield, but it has holes where I would expect pins to be located. Are
>these holes supposed to be threaded to accept a bolt up through the
>underside of the windshield? It just doesn't seem like the two
>turnbuckles are sufficient, plus I doubt there's a decent seal for the
>front edge of the top when it's wet out. And here in Oregon it's known to
>rain once in awhile.
>
>Any information on how this is supposed to tie down would be appreciated.
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