pinkmazda
+1y
ive been going through the forum and seen a lot of people asking how to get a convertable hardtop
Me my dad and his friend did mine back when it was my dads friends truck
He bought the kit but the that doesnt help you for shit it just gives you the plastic molding and some instructions on how to do it
First you got to take of those plastic things on the side of the truck
then you measure out were you want to cut at the top and at the bottom
and extend this out to the door got to cut those to lol
we took some 1inch by 5foot flat pieces of steel and welded across the back behind the sits to help hold the structure once we cut off the roof the front holds itself pretty good by itself
then came the saw zaw (however you spell it)after a lot of blades and cursing the roof was laying on the ground
then rolled the windows and cut the top frame of the door
This is the question everyone asks
how do you put that on the roof and be able to open or close the door with the windows up
Simple you cut the outside lip of the door frame piece that you cut off and then take all the weatherstrippin off the roof and weld it on there than take the wheather stripping you took off the roof and put it in the spot were you cut the lip off the door now you can open and close the door with the the roof on
also when you cut the roof you have to weld little brackets every six inches or so on the inside off the frame because it hollow in the middle and wiill start to twist together if you dont
then we put on the plastic molding a lot of weatherstripping, the four latches the kit provided and it was done took us about two days to do it all
also we found even with the kit it still isnt quite completly weather proof I fixed this when i got the truck by picking up a visor from the junk yard and modifying it to mount furthar bck on the roof and that solved it and it also i took some chrome strips about 3 inches wide and put it across the back bottom cut so now when i put the roof on you cant tell its a convertable unless you actually get up close and look at it
its kind of cool pull up somewhare and when everyones staring at ur truck just pull the roof off like magic lol people freak out