Im buying an 88gta and the car is perfect to me except it's a hard top. no i dont know toomuch about the conversion world but i need to know if i can change my hardtop to ttops. pricing? where i could get it done? who has done it and feedback on how it went. if anyone can help id appreciate it thank you

 

It would be cheaper to just buy a car with t tops to begin with. Any bodyshop should be able to do it if you supply the Ttop donor car, cost would be at least 1500.00 I would imagine probably more. Why not just put in a big sunroof?

 

i know it'd be cheaper but i found an awesome deal thats in my state and i just want to know what i asked. i have an 85 t/a so if all i need is thet/a and the "t" bar than i already have it but is that all i need?

 

uhhh...you'll need like the whole top of the car to do it right.

 

most people would cut the whole roof off including the A-pillars and sail panels

Be careful with the body shop you choose to do it my friend had a '79 t/a done like this and the body shop completely destroyed his car, its all twisted now and the window doesnt go the whole way to the roof.....its all messed up......he is now in a legal battle with the body shop

 

a pillars?

 

the pillars that go down beside the windshield...i just saw a good pic that showed what you need the other day...but go figure cant find it today

 

leave it to those crazy "knight rider" guys:
ttop conversion pictures

 

that is a good link to see how much you should replace

 

i have a ttop car i'll sell you. it's a 2.8. ripe for an engine swap. don't get me wrong the 2.8 runs STRONG. but swap all your TA stuff into it. it will be easyr.

if you are DEAD SET on a conversion you will need to hack the roof (as seen in photos) off about six inches below the roof along the sail pannels/apillars. then weald it on to the hardtop car that you want ttops on. sounds easy.

IF YOU SCREW IT UP:
your car will be too short or too tall
things won't line up right. like hatch, windows, windshield.
car will be weak as hell.

IF YOU DO IT RIGHT
you are the ****ing king
you have a ttop ride instead of a hardtop ride

another thing to consider
TTops leak, rattle, and are easyer to braske into then a hardtop car. i am SO exited to be getting rid of my ttop car in favor of my new hard top GTA. you don't know what a good thing you have in that hardtop. unless you live in the sunbelt, where it never rains (southerncali, arizone etc..) hard tops are a blessing.

 

Hardtops are a blessing and, IMHO, look way way more bad *** than a t-top car. Kinda like the C5 Z06 only coming in hardtop. It has no need for frillz. Its all buisness.

 

yeah, that about sums up my opinion on it. i have driven a hard top for one day now and i love it. so much less road noise

 

You know, I keep hearing this… I love t-top cars, but I want to build something more serious that will probably require a 10pt cage and I’m tall enough that I can’t see how I could do it with t-tops, and for the life of me I can’t seem to find a reasonably priced, not screwed up hard top car.

My wife just about has me convinced to just get a nice car t-top car and cut the top of the formula when I part it out and convert whatever I find. Doesn’t look hard at all, but I just don’t feel that it should be that hard to find a good hard top shell.

 

that's a nice cut on the rear, but I think I'd cut the front across the top of the windshield. Then I wouldn't have to worry about the windshield not fitting properly.

Mathius

 

witrh a realiable tape measure that shouldn't be a problem

 

If you think it's that easy, I don't want you touching any of my cars.

First off, you have to make sure everything lines up exactly square, easy enough, provided you cut exactly the same amount off of both cars.

Then you're going to have to keep your work supported, probably by tacking some angle iron to form a makeshift jig, or everything's probably going to move from the heat of welding.

Now you've got to deal with the contours of the window frame not only when you're welding, trying to get good penetration in possibly a small area (never really got to see a thirdgen with no windshield that I recall, so I can't honestly say what kind of room there is to get inside the channel to weld), but also when you've finished welding, and you have to grind the welds smooth. Of course you're probably not going to be able to do that with your usual 4.5" angle grinder either, because of the small contours again.

Like I said, would be 100 times easier IMO if you cut above the window frame. Simply brace it with angle iron tacked in place, cut it out, weld it back in, and then grind the flat surface down with a roloc and/or angle grinder.

Course either way, the term "simple" is not really accurate. You're still looking at hours of work, not including the paint work afterwards.

Mathius

 

First off, i never said it was an easy or simple task in fact i expressed in an earlier task that you should be careful as to whom you have do this work because its not simple.
all I said is that with proper mearuring the windshield fitting properly should not be an issue

 

You guys are making too big a deal of this. Measure 2x (or 6x if it makes you feel better, it will take less time then fixing things if you mess up), cut once… Hell, factory tolerances for most body parts are in the >3/16” range, it’s not very hard to do better then that if you’re taking your time.

Cutting through above the windshield is asking for trouble, then you have a long seam through a reinforced area that you can’t get to both sides of. Plus, long seams are much more fussy and much more work to make look good then short ones. The biggest problem that I can see with cutting the A-pillars is that it would be difficult to rust proof the backs of the welds, but of course, that’s what they make weld through primer for.

Oh, and if you’re having problems with penetration on body sheet metal you really should reconsider what you’re doing with a welder in your hands.

 

Who said anything about having trouble with penetration? I have 4 welding certs thanks, I'm very comfortable with a welder in my hands, 2 Tig, 1 MIG, and 1 arc cert. and formal schooling.

I said quite clearly that I didn't know what the windshield contour looked like with the glass removed, but there was the possibilty of a small area where you may have trouble getting to with a welder.

A large MIG whip can sometimes give trouble trying to get into smaller areas.

That's all I said. Sometimes your posts are so rediculously arrogant I find it hard to wonder if you have a friend in the world. To hear you talk, you know everything about everything. I've been listening to it for years now and I can't believe no one's said anything to you. If I'm the first, so be it. If you are so damn intelligent, why don't you add something useful to these boards instead of always putting down other people's work?

I had a t-top car twist during an accident and the windshield literally forced itself out of the channel after a few years and had to be resealed as well as the whole area re-welded due to the corrosion caused by the problem.

I'd much rather clean up a long seam on a flat surface then possibly make the situation worse. Besides, as you yourself stated, not being able to get to the backside shouldn't be a problem. If you're having trouble getting penetration, maybe you should think about what you're doing with a welder in your hands. Oh, and that's what weld thru primer is for.



Mathius

 

Um, you did:
Maybe it’s time to actually learn what you’re doing instead of putzing around getting paperwork.

Agreed… but I can’t imagine why this would be the case with an A-pillar, and if it was a tig with a small cup or a little extra stick out would take care of that. Or if all you have is the mig some flux core with just a contact tip or contact tip and cover in the mig will work fine also.

Heh, funny thing… the joke around here is that people tend to follow me around like puppies. Arrogant? Is that something like telling people that they’re wrong when they’re wrong? Woops, I’m sorry, I don’t care who the hell you are or think you are if you’re wrong. If you’re an idiot, you’re an idiot. Seems to me that I make more friends that way then not, and those that that bothers aren’t worth worrying about. Problem solved.

You may feel that I don’t add anything useful to the conversations, but I get probably 6 to a dozen emails and PM’s a week that basically go “I hope that you don’t mind me contacting you off the board but…” so I guess I have a few people that disagree with you.

As far as the rest of this, AGAIN. Measure it out and cut the pillars. Done. You spend a lot of time talking about how welding heat will twist things up and then suggest running a seam the whole length of the roof as a better solution then just learning to use a ruler right.

Huh.

 

you both have good points. all the wealding certs in the world won't help you weald inside a 1/4" slot with a big *** wealder, if you don't have the right tools it is difficult to get the job done.

however; all the fancy tools in the world won't help you if you don't know what the hell your doing, or don't take the time to do it right.

when it comes to wealding i have been at both ends... when i was first learning to weald i had access to some good equip. my highschool had all lincoln brand wealders. but if you don't know how to weald they don't do you any good...

now that i know how to weald the only equip. i have access too is my dads crappy "carver electric" 110V wirefeed. he has it hooked up to one of those "turn a light socket into an outlet" things you get like, 20 seconds of wealding before you throw the breaker

 

More or less what I'd expect you to say. Arrogant to the bone. If you have anything more to say to me take it to PM's. I refuse to demean this topic any futher. Hope you feel better about yourself when you talk like that.

Mathius

 

Heh, you’d be surprised how much you can accomplish with a crappy 110v welder. You’d also be surprised how little you could accomplish with a good welder and a crappy power supply. Run a real outlet to where ever you’re using the thing or run an extension chord to the laundry room (they usually have a high amp 110v outlet, or even better, use the drier outlet and split off one leg and a N from it to get 110v), you’ll be much happier.

 

Ah if you're using a tape measure then you're in serious trouble. The only way to do it properly is make templates of the cuts out of heavy paper. Make sure the template is big enough to cover a large area and match surrounding curves. This is by far the easiest way to do it.

Now about the pillars vs. along the windshield. I have never seen anyone swap a roof by cutting along the windshield. Just way too many thing to go wrong. Now if you were chopping the top and expanding it, then yes, but for a relatively simple roof swap cut at the pillars.

I have a seen a few done. Two actually and both turned out really well. I may be doing the T-Tops on Cutlass just need to find a donor car that is not all rusted.

Steve

 

Heh, that’s a very good point… sometimes you do enough of this kind of stuff that you don’t even think that someone would do it differently. _anything_ that you can come up with to make sure that both are cut the same way will make the procedure MUCH easier. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the same side to side (in some cases you can use some difference to hide that something was done or to make up for damage on the doner and/or the recipient) but it does have to be the same from one piece to the other