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Finished replacing the top on my 2000 Viggen. Wow. Pretty much 4 8 hours days. As needed I had a helped, but most of that time was just me.
I had a sense of urgency since my wife and I are planning a vacation road trip around Labor Day (Covid permitting). The old top simply let in too much water. So, if the Saab is going out of town, it needed to do a better job if/when is sits in the rain.
Due to COVID, most vendors were looking at most of 30 days to deliver a replacement. That was not going to work, so off I went to that big buyer-beware auction site. Found a top in stock. Obviosuly it was delivered. Also ordered 9-3 specific guidebook from convertibletopguys.
Can you do the top? Probably. I am off work for several weeks, so I had more time than money. YMMV.
Mistake #1: I did not take enough pictures as I took off the old. When you are pulling off the old, it is easy to assume everything you are doing is self evident. It won't be later.
Mistake #2: putting too much stock in the booklet. More descriptions needed. More pictures needed.
Mistake #3: not ordering best available top and giving it time to arrive. My original plan was to do this slowly over the winter.
Mistake #3b: not getting a new headliner. Because top was not nearly watertight, the headliner has had a hard life. But the time factor and the cost (not so far off price of the roof itself) had me re-use the old one.
Almost Mistake #4: thinking I would do this in the winter. Storage for the Viggen is dry but unheated. That would not have worked well. MY fingers would get cold. Possibly the canvas top would be less flexibile, too. Certainly would have hindered the process of placing car in direct sun to give the canvas some ability to stretch.
Mistake #4: The hard plastic trim by the latch handle along bow #1 is 20 year old plastic. At least on mine it was super brittle. Replacement parts are expensive for what they are and hard to get. But where does one stop when spending money on a hobby car?
Mistake #5: buying snap ring pliers for the rear window removal and reuse. I was told the spring clips that hold window to canvas tended to fly away. That was not my experience. what worked for me was to use a very small thin screwdriver to pry up the latching end of the clip then using a larger screwdriver to pry them off one at a time. None were lost, but they are the dickens to take off and nearly as hard to re-use. What worked for me to re-install was To put the long side on and use thin nose pliers to bend the other side to open the thing wide enough to get both sides on the window and everything else. I used them as clamps at first and only pushed them fully one when I was happy with the overall fit and feel.
Mistake #6: Trying to attach canvas to window on a flat surface. The window is not a flt piece of glass. What did the trick for me was to use a folding garage workmate type table only a bit bigger than the glass window. Then everything can hang a bit closer to the way it will hang once installed. Until I did this, it seems that I could not keep the canvas from bunching--especially in the corners. Once I figured out how to hang the fabric, things went much better.
Mistake #7: Trying to insert windblocker and canvas at the same time. Ugh. But, as noted above, I did not fully seat the spring clips at first. Partial pressure holds the canvas in place but allows you to slide the edge of the headliner into position then push the clips into locked position.
Mistake #8: not handling weatherstrip properly. The gasket between bow 1 and bow 2 does need to be removed. The next piee (bow2-3) does not, no matter what the book says. The next piece, on the front edge of the C pillar does need to come off, but it is totally different than the others. This piece has three screws right through the rubber material. They are hard to see but it is an easier set up.
Mistake #9: Thinking my ebay top would fit easily or instantly. It did come together, but not right off. Biggest issues were fifth bow and that C pillar.
Mistake #10: Not sequencing first bow issues well. I got the top fitted and wanted to get leading edge in place while I still had some slack. Mistake. I had to take the rigid metal plate off becasue I forgot to put the plastic trim that hides the front latch mechanism. Then I had to disassemble yet again becasue I forgot to put the cotter pins in place that allow the handle to click into position.
So, with all those mistakes, it probably took me about 25 hours. That included tear down, cleaning and coloring the headliner, lots of colorful language, etc. But I also have a new top for not much over $400. And I have swell rivet gin for future projects.
posted by 108.225.5...
, Sun, 9 Aug 2020 08:32:03
, Wed, 7 Oct 2020 20:29:46
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