1. anyone ever converted t-tops to hardtop? can it be done??
2.there are some paint spots that i would like to take care of. some of the paint is chipping on the bottom edge of the wheel well(or fender), and there are some rusty spots on the bottom corner of my doors and the bottom of the decklid. is there anyway i can fix this without repainting the whole thing. if so, how much do you think it would cost. the guy that sold me the car used some kind of paint that doesnt use clear coat. i dont remember exactly what kind. what can i do??


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beau-t-ful yellow 85 iroc

 

1. Yes. Simply sell yours and buy a hard top.
2. Non-clear coat paints are called "single stage" paints. They tend to be used by people too cheap to use good paint. Those areas can be spotted in, but if the paint isn't a good match, it can tend to look pretty horrible. Non clear coat colors also have a tendancy to fade much more than clear coat colors, so color matching can sometimes be an issue.

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thanks jim,

i realize that selling my car and getting another one would be very easy solution, however, A. my car has 137500 miles, and i cant sell it for enough to get another one as nice as the one i have, and B. its yellow and i love the color, and theyre hard to come by in this color. so, basically until i can afford to buy another car on top of this one im pretty screwed. ive advertised all over the internet (exc. e-bay), and i have had no luck. this royally sucks. sorry to vent on here. i just get dissapointed. thanks for the help.


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beau-t-ful yellow 85 iroc

 

There's no reason it couldn't be done. GM just put on a different roof for the t-top cars. They also added some structural bracing to the doors- above the latches, there's a second silver "catch".

If you sanded down the panel between your driver's window and hatchback window, you'd find a copperish line going across; that's GM's line. I don't know where the line is on the front a-pillars, though.

The pain would be trying to find a roof in the junkyard that isn't already tweaked by body stress. I suppose you could just weld metal sheets in place of your t-tops? Maybe you don't need the whole roof, just the section above your head? It'd be a pain to cut & weld, but it'd be less dramatic than yanking the whole roof off your car

Oh and be warned- the area at the top of the roof, where it meets the side windows, at the back of the side windows, is filled with LEAD. (That's why stress cracks are common in that area.) I didn't know that, and was merrily sanding away without a dust mask. Hopefully I won't regret that one later...


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-Tom P (Hot rodded 1986 Firebird 2.8l) from http://www.f-body.net/mailbag/3rd/3rd_mailbag.html message boards
---Think your car could be pic of the week? Visit http://www.f-body.net for details!

 

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[This message has been edited by Jza (edited November 21, 2001).]

 

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[This message has been edited by Jza (edited November 21, 2001).]