Timinsk

iTrader: (9)

I have a few locations an need help. I'll have a full week free to myself without interruptions and already bought the ttop weatherstripping. Please if anyone helps, answer my questions in accordance so it doesn't go off topic.

Project 1) Ttop Weatherstripping:
> Should i use the 3M weatherstripping glue? Pros & Cons of it.
> How hard is it to replace the weatherstripping?
> Should i buy anything to prepare for anything that maybe wrong with my t-bar? (next project leads to this question)

Project 2) Checking other leak locations:
*on the way home i notice another leak (i have my headliner in but the plastic between the head liner and the rear hatch is removed) theres like 3~5 constant drips coming from the metal and it felt like the weld spots but i'm not certain*
> Anyone else have random leak spots and want to fill me in on what to expect & what i should use to solve these spots as well?


thanks!

diablood5

i had the same prob with my t tops a few months back. take the headliner out.. and all the uper trim ... i sat in my car and had my wife spray it down with a hose that had a high pressure tip on it. sat inside with a led flashlight. you will find the leaks...quick..lol.... the rear leaks on my car were from the hatch back mounting holes. not the t tops... hope this helps

Timinsk

iTrader: (9)

I'm hoping thats what it is, i'm just going to tighten the bolts and silicone them.

diablood5

i took each side loose first and put some rtv (black) under the hinges .. when you tighten them up it will fill the holes. i have not had any probs out of mine

WHTrunner

Get some paint.

I'm about a month into replacing my t-top weatherstripping. I can't find anyone to make me some paint that matches.

Make sure you get some adhesive remover. If your old weatherstripping isn't twenty freaking years old, you might come upon some old sticky glue that can be removed. If yours is like mine, you'll probably be in there with a screwdriver and a hammer, chipping it off until you just decide to glue over the old stuff. I mean, it's not coming off now, it probably won't come off later on, either.

I used the 3M goop you mentioned for my door's weatherstripping. It works pretty good. It takes an hour or two to set up, so get some masking tape to hold things in place for a while. Make sure you don't get the sticky part of the tape against the weatherstripping. Put a second piece of tape, sticky side to sticky side, where the tape will touch the weatherstripping, so that you don't end up peeling a piece of your weatherstripping off when you remove the tape.

Also, if your area is having a drought, just destroy anything that you can park your car under. A leaky t-top with no cover seems to attract very large, slow moving rain clouds. The leakier the car, the more violent the storm. I have single-handedly ended a drought in a small patch of West Texas over the last four weeks (it started the day after I bought the car).


Sorry if that sounded like a rant. It was. I'm running out of ideas on how I'm gonna get this thing fixed without painting the whole car. It's a nice paint job (I mean it looks nice; it's really a piece of crap.) I just don't want to paint the whole thing right now.

Timinsk

iTrader: (9)

I'll probably do the same, there no such thing as aligning a hatch is there? (that i have to worry about when loosening)

I KNOW mine is 20 yrs old, lol. well more like 21 now but i'll get some de-goop to remove anything else. The paint i have no worries about. I'd love to have my car painted but i just can't afford it right now and i have no friends or family who will donate to my cause.. (jealous of my friends who their parents give everything too..) but for now i'll try the passenger side since its the worse.

Anything i should buy to cover up rust IF there is any on the t-bar? something to make a permanent fixed-patch?

Kevman

Mine leak, the biggest issue is the $700 for the AC Delco replacement seals..

diablood5

[quote=Timinsk;4549738]I'll probably do the same, there no such thing as aligning a hatch is there? (that i have to worry about when loosening)



do one side at a time. i did the driver side first. after i got the nuts loose from the inside( i did not take them all the way off) i lifted that side of the hatch up and proped it up with a small 2x4. if you do one side ,then the other it shouldn't move enough to get it off track

diablood5

hell. i got mine off of ebay for $200 and they worked great.

Timinsk

iTrader: (9)

I got mine from ebay as well..

Boogie123

Today was the first day I've ever actually been inside my car when it rained. I knew it was bad from having to scoop water out with a cup before but my lord, it leaks in places I didn't know possible. There was dripping from the visor mount, out of holes between the hatch and where the t-tops start(not hatch bolts), and in both back corners of the tops. And by leaks I mean it poors.

diablood5

start with the t-top seals and go from there. it is prob coming from less spots than you think. your headliner has a hard backing on it.once the water drips on to it , it flows all over. i had water coming from the visor mount aswell but when i took out the headliner ,it wasn't coming from anywhere around them. i could make a hard turn and it would drip on my leg, take off fast and it would soak the back seat. take the headliner and trim off and soak it down. only took me 15min to have everything out and ready to check.

Boogie123

Well I don't even have a headliner in my car. I figured the water was just running from a leak in the tops and dripping off the visor mount but it's not. It's definitely coming from the visor. I've got a 91rs sitting up that didn't leak anywhere near as bad. I'd probably destroy the weatherstripping if I tried to pull it though.

diablood5

damn... thats one hell of a leak.

Boogie123

Yeah it's horrible. I don't know how it's happening but it is. Had to scoop water out with a cup today.

copyfixr

iTrader: (3)

Subscribing. My 14 year old son just bought an 88 and we have some leaks. I fixed some by adjusting the tops, but it still leaks. The door hinge pins are getting bad, and his seems to leak at the corners of the tops where they meet the doors so I'm thinking of replacing those to tighten up the window to top seal.

QUICKCHICKEN

iTrader: (12)

i did mine myself except the under glass bolts. pop off your struts, hatch panel end first then the main ones at the other end. if you do the main ones the bolts will strip the holes when you get to the last 2 or so threads, also drop the hatch motor. there are 4 nutz under the trim between the headliner and hatch trim panel. loosen those till they are finger loose an then go to the back of the car and scoot the glass around and up till it looks right.

if it needs to be shifted l or r cinch the inside nuts down and loosen the under glass nuts. with a friend shift the glass which ever way you need to go and when its where it needs to be cinch it down and then go back and check thte rest of the hatch and adj that as needed after adj the left to right shift.

i did this today on mine and it looks good except for the pass side sits up a tad vs the other side and the lil bumper isnt even touching so something is up.

bgmoss

I was able to seal a leak without replacing the t-top seals by puting black RTV around where the t-tops locate(all three contact surfaces outer edges only), wrapping the glass edge with plastic wrap, inserting and locking down the t-tops, letting it sit overnight, remove the t-tops, remove the plastic wrap.

It is non-visible and actually worked. It doesn't address the window to outer edge seal though, but mine is still good. I didn't fill the drain channel portion of the seal, just where the edges make contact with seals in the t-bar and fron/back surfaces.

copyfixr

iTrader: (3)

Can you post up a few pics of your repair. My son's car has a few little leaks that i'm trying to fix without replacing the seals. they look real good and I have adjusted the glass, so i'm looking for some ideas. Thanks.

bgmoss

It won't show up in pictures because the amount of rtv that actually got used blened in with the seals and is hidden under the t-bar. This stopped the tbar rusting problem too. Most of the issue that was fixed is where the edge of the glass slides under the t-Bar. The RTV just made a custom fit inside that channel. Then at the surfaces where the glass actually makes contact with the seal, I noticed that the seal would have a slight amount of non-conformity to the glass - even after adjustment. So, I applied a little RTV to those seal edges where this was happening as well, then laid plastic wrap on the rtv and around the edges of the window before locking them down. This may have been needed since I replaced the Lexan with glass when the Lexan cracked. The seals had taken a seat to the Lexan shape.

Once dried, I removed the glass and the plastic wrap.

fishing1

BGmoss what is RTV?

1983Chimaera

There are tons of threads on leaky T-tops, do a search. I posted my fix on at least two of them, but what the hell, here goes;

The seals themselves are only part of the leak problem. The main issue is that GM poorly designed the T-Top on the F-Body, and did not allow water any place to adequately drain off. The end result is that even though the seals themselves may keep water from leaking between the glass top and the seal, water seeps behind and is trapped down along the channel between the seal and the metal of the body, and over time causes severe rot. I have seen many cars, both my own and junkyard examples, with the channels full of rusted holes clear thru the body, and T-top center bars that look like they've been immersed in acid. My own center bar had completely separated from both of the side pieces that the T-Tops sit atop, turning the connecting section into a mass of crunchy bits. I had a hole 3" long on the rear passenger side of the T-Top channel, about 1/4" tall and rusted completely thru. There were also numerous smaller holes, and lots of rust pitting. The top of my passenger A-pillar was a crunchy mess. My car is an '83, so it had a lot more years of abuse than others may have, but as all of our cars are 20+ years old it merely depends on the level of neglect and the climates it's been exposed to. In my case the car had been abused fairly badly by the previous owners, and the weatherstripping was completely neglected.
Now the fix. I removed the old weatherstripping, not worrying about adhesive removers because I had no intention of salvaging the old seals, and the metal underneath was in need of repair anyway. The next step was to remove what remained of my extremely rotted center bar. Once this was out, I took a grinder with a wire wheel and attacked every inch of my T-Top channels and center bar until I had removed all the visible rust and paint, including about 1/2 back onto the edges of the body. This revealed the true extent of the damage, including several small holes that had been masked by paint. I filled the larger holes with gap filling foam, available at any home supply store. Once this dried I used a razor blade to trim it to just under the surface of the body. It's not there to seal, just to act as support for the actual repair and give it strength. I then used 2-part metal epoxy (the 5 minute mix and mold style) to fix the holes and gashes, and rebuild the degraded areas. This I let sit overnight (thankfully no rain!), until it was rock hard the next morning and fully cured. I then used 80 grit sandpaper to smooth and shape the repaired areas, until it matched the original contours. Then 180 grit, then 400 grit to prepare the surface and remove sanding marks. After this, the entire T-Top channel system got a liberal treatment with spray Rust Reformer, to take care of anything that may have been missed or unable to reach with the wire wheel. I then sprayed self etching primer, and finally resprayed the whole area with my car's paint color. Once this cured overnight, I installed my replacement T-Top center bar, and used 3M weatherstrip adhesive to glue in my new T-Top seals. Once these cured, I used black 3-hr rain ready silicone and applied it between the seals and the body, starting at one corner of the center bar and working towards the outside of the car, one section at a time. I applied two passes, one all the way down into the bottom of the gap, and a second pass on top of the first, letting the seal close back behind the caulk gun tip and squeezing out the excess. Once I completed a pass, I wiped the excess off, forming a seal between the weather strip and the body of the car so no water can get down between the seal and the body. I also applied silicone between the body and the ends of the center bar. The end result is a car that no longer drips water on me in even the heaviest rain, and doesn't flood the wells under my back seats or on top of the vinyl rear buckets. In fact, the only leak I do still have is from an oversight on my part. I should have and highly recommend that before reinstalling the center bar, you coat the ENTIRE section under it with a thick coat of silicone. I still have a small amount of water getting down between the T-Top and the center bar, getting between the center bar and the body, running in between the sheetmetal layers and into the headliner on the passenger side. Siliconing under the center bar would have prevented this and made my car entirely waterproof around the seals. As I installed a used pair of seals (although in excellent shape), I'm still planning on doing this fix on mine, but if you don't skip this step as I did you should have no problems.
I hope this helps!

fishing1

Thanks that all great info I am just getting into this project so your past experience is very helpfull. I couple quick questions whom did you get your TTop center bar and what replacement gasket set did you go with and how did you like them?

1983Chimaera

Both my replacement T-Top center bar and T-Top seals came from a junkyard '92 Camaro. I simply looked for one in good shape (lucked out and found one in excellent shape, no rust or other damage), and seals that were still pliable and not torn or missing chunks. Getting them off was simply a matter of being slow and careful, and using a sharp edged putty knife. If you're meticulous about it, it can be done. Keep in mind mine was done out of absolute necessity on a car I'm not ready to have final painted, so junkyard seals were a stopgap measure. If your car isn't going to go thru a paint job anytime soon, I would recommend buying new seals. Rockauto.com has them for fairly inexpensive, and there are other suppliers out there for varying price ranges. The center bar I haven't looked for, so can't say whether there is any aftermarket supplier for one.