Been reading up on refurbishing targa tops……… it’s got to be done sometime, and as I have no petrol and it’s raining anyway ………
Step 1 – remove targa top from car (going well so far)
Step 2 – remove fittings and stuff (still going well)
Remove little cover plates from ends of side seals
Remove 4 screws (plus 1 on the end) from side seals
Remove 5 screws from rain gutters
….and remove to a place of safety
While removing, I checked them out. The side seals are a little worse for wear but only where the rear edge of the side window meets them. Rain gutters are fine - shame that I’ve (as usual) assumed the worse and bought some replacements. Nevermind, I can add them to my growing ‘For Sale’ lists.
Remove clips
Step 4 – remove old materials (starts going less easily)
Remove headlining
![Image](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51550430803_0bf67da3df_c.jpg)
Someone has been in here before – there’s “Brooklands’ written on the underside of the vinyl, a date written under the headlining and one of the clips was under, not on top of, the headlining.
The headlining came out easily and looks in champion condition – something else for the sale list
Remove front locator pins
Remove these cover pieces. They have surely got a name, but a) I don’t know it and b) I can’t be bothered to make one up.
Both sides secured with 2 small screws and popper. This side had flat head screws, whereas the other side had Phillips style, the same as the side seals, etc.
I took this photo next, but have no idea why
Record shots of the way the outer cover is folded over at and near to the corners. They’re here so that I know where to find them !
Start to peel off the outer cover (vinyl)
What a nightmare that was. I found that gently warming the glued areas with the heat gun helped a lot. The out vinyl was a bu$$er to get off the hessian, which was just disintegrating in front of my eyes.
Finally, the vinyl cover was off, and then off came the insulation and hessian
Record shot of foam above the (not really) captive nuts for the rows of clips
Methinks that I may have to do some remedial work on the ends of the floating cross bars
Likewise, some new strapping needed. This runs along the front and rear sides of the roof
Luckily I had noticed the torn webbing and the poor state of the floating cross bars, so I measured the diagonals of the roof before it was too late. Well hopefully, we’ll see if/when it all goes back together again.
So, while waiting for webbing to arrive, I have now broken out the TIG machine and had a play a sticking metal together. I have some quite thin steel, which hopefully will do for repairs to the cross bars. Strangely, it is only the floating ones that have suffered.
In other news, I was about to remove the speedo (the odometer wasn’t working when I test drove the car). Before I did, I had a eureka moment – I had zero’ed the odometer before the test drive. I wonder …… Yes, the reset button was stuck in. So, if we’re lucky, then no repairs needed. If we’re unluckly, then we bu$$ered the odometer up getting the reset button stuck. Time will tell.