I'm thinking GM changed to pin for a reason. What are the disadvantages of the hook style. I wanted to replace my lexan ones so I bought some t-tops online. After shipping, they cost me a good amount of money (shipping ended costing more than it was supposed to.) They were off an 84. Foolish me.

Would switching my 91 to hook style be a huge step backwards, or should I just clean them up and then sell them at a loss. My plan was to clean them up and use them.

 

You can probably find someone to swap with you. My car is an '83 and had the hook-style T-Tops, but I couldn't find a nice set, so I swapped the latches/brackets and bought a nice set of pin-style T-Tops.

I looked for a nice set of hook-style for a while, but they only made them for a couple years so they're harder to find. Plus, they're the oldest ones and more likely to be scratched/damaged.

Nice pin-style T-Tops are easy to find, I wouldn't go backwards and change your latches to hook-style.

 

Its just that if I sold these and bought pin style, i'd be loosing even more money.

I just want to know if making these work would be a bad thing?

 

I don't have first-hand experience, but I am guessing that you could make your car accept the hook style tops you bought very easily. On the pin style cars, you can just remove some plastic interior trim to expose the pin retainers, and then remove each of those by taking out two small screws. So, I imagine that if you get hook-style receivers for your car, you could swap them in place of the pin receivers you have now. Perhaps someone can comment on this who has a hook-style car? What do the hooks grab onto?

 

I'd think you would stand to make money if you sold them for the right price. Nice hook-style T-Tops are valuable to people restoring early cars, like 82 Pace cars, etc.

You can convert your car easily and use them if you want. I did the exact opposite conversion & I still have all the hook-style mounts I took off my '83. If you're interested, PM me.

 

Instead of converting your car, you can convert the t-tops over

Remove the cover and swap the guts of the linkage they should be bolted to a strip thats appoxyed to the glass

You can use your old lexans as a donor so your not out any more cash, just about 30 mins swapping and adjusting them

 

Unfortunatly it doesn't quite work that way. The sides of the base epoxied to the glass on the hook style is slotted and on the pin style there is just a hole.

 

I don't think it would be a bad thing to switch over your tops. I mean, If you've already bought the tops why not go ahead and use them?

The only thing different (function wise) is the pin style holds just a little tighter to the body than the hooks do, and I think the hook style aren't lockable.
If you don't care about the locking function, then I'd go for it.

 

Thats probably what I'll do. Can always sell them later.