As promised, here's a re-cap of my fiberglass hardtop installation
experience. I got differing responses as to whether the lower turnbuckle
bolts had hooks or eyes. I suspect hooks intended to go into a bent
aluminum plate similar to the one on the top itself was the original
configuration. Here's what I did:
Removed the soft top so there'd be more room in the car during the winter.
The turnbuckles installed on the top were missing the lower parts, which
were fortunately right-hand thread. I bought some 4.5" eye bolts at the
hardware store (longer than the upper ones). Chose longer because I then
loosened the middle one of three large machine screws that held the soft
top frame on, enough to slip the eye bolt from the turnbuckle over it.
For the front attachment, I took a different approach than the standard
"put a 1/4" bolt all the way through the windshield frame" method. I ended
up removing the latches from the soft top and put them on the hard top
after a little hole modification with a dremel tool (had to make a slot for
the pin on the peg). Installation of the top was a cinch. I did decide to
leave the lhandles off the latches because it would have been a pain to get
the screws in. Very neat looking, and no holes in the vinyl trim.
The warpage of the soft top mostly disappeared when I tightened the
turnbuckles down. Now I just need to figure out how to get rid of the big
scratches on outside of the top (either road rash from coming off
Anyone know where to get a new set of latches (pegs, anyway) for the soft
top? Both handles were fastened on loosely with wood screws! TRF and Moss
have these in their catalog, but no prices, so I assume they're NLS. One
of the pegs had metric threads originally. The other has a slightly
smaller hole, so I suspect it was UNF, but is too mangled by the wood screw
to check.
Ted Stevens stevens@erols.com
74 TR6 Gaithersburg, MD
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