vinyl top

[73chgrSE]

I'm considering pulling off my original vinyl roof before I have the car painted again. It looks like it's in pretty good shape for it's age. I believe it's been painted over once. What should I expect to encounter besides having to fill some holes where the trim goes in? The car does have alittle visible rust (door well spots and hood trim)but it's very minor. Is beneath the vinyl usually worse? Has anyone else here gone from vinyl to hard top?

[almerkel]

Chances are that there will be rust under the top.   
This is very common.  I found holes through the metal as well.  Good luck.

[73chgrSE]

In your opinion is this procedure worth it or is it a potential nitemare thats better left alone?

[Todd Wilson]

If you choose to make a hardtop out of a vinyl top car you will have to fix the top to make it look good. Lots of things can be wrong after a vinyl top has been on for so many years.



You can have surface rust or pin holes.   You probably will have some nasty rust around the edges of the windshield and maybe the rear window. They have to be fixed and made to look good.  The roof seam will have to be finsihed better then was done at the factory.   There are some products out there to fix the small rust items out there and put a vinyl top back on and have it look good and be safe from future rust problems. My vinyl top/roof was in really good shape compared to others I have seen.  It would have taken a LOT of work to get my top ready to look good without a vinyl top.


Todd

[JimShine]

It is hard to predict this stuff. My '69 Charger is a Northeastern car and it had pin holes along the seams. My '70 Coronet, which has been in Maine all of its life and garaged only 8 of its most recent years looked factory fresh under the vinyl. The only rust was under the seams on the A pillars and it wasn't rot.

[73chgrSE]

I can only see a couple places where the vinyl is lumpy(possibly rust underneath). The vinyl itself is in really good shape though. It is a deeper ridged texture than I have seen on other vinyl tops. Maybe it's been redone.

[Drop Top]

If you can see lumpy spots. There will be rust under it. Guaranteed! You might think your opening a can of worms. But the longer you choose to prolong the inevitable. The worse the problem will get. Trust me on this one. I've been restoring cars a very long time and have yet to see one that doesn't have any rust underneath it. The older these cars get the more likely it will happen. Unless of coarse, someone has changed the top once before and repaired it correctly at that time.

[73dodge]

Yea you don't know the extent of the rust under the top until you pull it back but IMO it's going to be alot worse than you expect. Be prepared for alot of work, if it's minor rust then consider yourself extremely lucky but prepare for the worst. My Charger had some "small" rust pinholes around the windshield under the vinyl or so I was told when I bought it. Well after peeling back the top and once I started cleaning the rust those little pin holes turned into some major missing metal. So don't be fooled by some "small" lumpy spots.

[doctorpimp]

Yep see mine:
http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,12275.0.html