After 14 years of on/off use, sunny california weather, and curbside parking in oakland my tops were definatley showing thier age. Scratched, cloudy, pitted, and not looking so hot, I decided they needed some love. I read a few articles here about people doing similar work, so decided to try myself. WOW ! is all I can say. See for yourself ! If your tops are hazy or cloudy, have fine scratches, deep scrathes (normally caused by one scraping the other ), hard water spots, bird crap, etc. and you want them to shine like new, heres exactly what I did to get mine new again.

Materials Needed:
Wet Dry Sandpaper 400 grit - 1000 (i ended up going up to 2000 grit)
Micro Mesh TM. The kit includes #1500, 1800, 2400, 3200, 3600, 4000, 6000, 8000 and 12000-grits (two 3" x 6" pieces each), with a neoprene sanding block and instructions.
3M Professional Plasic Cleaner and Polish ( optional )
Time : about 5 hours per side. Depends on where you start, where you finish, and how perfect you feel the need to make them.
Water : lots of it at first. . .in a spray bottle later on.

Take the top off the car and place somewhere where you can make a mess with water, and work on. An outdoor table, padded sawhorses in a driveway, or side yard will do. Give the top a good washing and inspect. Is it in really bad shape. Heres my other top.


I needed to do some serious surface removal, so I started at 400 grit wet dry. Use the neoprene foam block, and work in a straight continous motion with slight pressure from one end of the top the other, rolling off the metal edge then back. This push / pull motion is the same I used for the extent of my sanding. We want to ensure we do not sand in one spot, use short, or uneven strokes, so as to create high and low spots. I also flipped the top 180 degrees every grit change, but always using straight continous motions across the top.

Give the top a through wash between paper changes. I used 2 sheets (divided into 6 sections) of the 400, then the 600, 800, 1000, and 2000.

The first few steps are the tougest, and messiest. Keep ample amounts of water around to wash more frequently. At 400, you should have a rough scratch pattern, but none the less and even and more important scrach free plastic. At the 800 grit the top looks like the surface of a vinyl record. With fine linear scratches. Very little reflectivity - quite blurred.

At 1000 grit the process becomes much easier since less material is being removed. The top starts to gain reflectivity back, however a distinct scratch pattern is still visible. I worked the top up to the 2000 grit wet dry, then began using the MicroMesh. I read that the 1500 mesh was equal to standard 400 grit wet /dry. Oh well... I dont know if the top would have come out as good if i started there, maybe I'll try the other without the standard wet dry. So I started the MicroMesh where I left off, at 2000. The kit only came with 2x sheets of each grit. So I used 1 sheet per side (as opposed to the 6x sheets of the 400-2000 of standard stuff). The MicroMesh is adhesive glued to a fabric mesh, much tougher than paper, easier to contour, doesnt rip, cleans easier, and loads up slower.

At 3000 the surface is like satin, very fine scrach pattern and building up a nice reflection on glancing angles. The scratch pattern is faint at 6000, and undetectable at 12000. These last steps can be omitted depending on what gloss you prefer. Since very little waste is created, very little water is needed I even finished the final few sandings inside. When the sanding was all done, I rinsed them well and applied the 3M Plastic cleaner followed by polish by hand (according to directions). Only wish the camera could show you an 'extreme close-up' -- there is not one scratch left on top. Looks and feels like glass.

 

are those plastic tops? Lexan i think they are called.

Or is that the glass ones.

 

Very nice job on them Adam I hope you don't mind if I scan this article to my computer and convert it to a PDF for future reference. Again, a really super good job.

 

THIS SHOULD BE A STICKY!!!!!

 

The sticker on the underside refers to them as "acrylic roof panels"

 

Acrobat 6.0 can convert html pages to pdf. I could easily attach an pdf version. . . nuff said

oh and by the way its alex. . .login is abbreviated first Initail - first 7 of last name

thanks for the props
-alex

 

ahh ok thats what i thought, don;t try this with glass tops i wouldn't think it would work.

The came out really good, good job.

I was wondering though if you could save some sanding with the higher grits by buffing with a power buffer and some plastic polish, like used to do the tail lights. Just a thought.

Jeff

 

i wonder if it would work on glass tops??

 

You're welcome for the props, I'm running adobe 6.01 pro. myself.

 

see following post :

 

in case anyone wants a pdf of this :

Restoring T-Tops PDF

~alex

 

Where can one get this Micro Mesh kit from ????

 

If you send it to us in the format our Tech Articles are in it'll be added some day.

 

I didnt want to plug any company or site. . .and figured it better not to, but since you asked . . .

Stewart MacDonald

 

I'd be happy to, I'm guessing that format is html or DHTML ?

 

Thank you for your hard work, it has really paid off. I am going to order the kit and do mine, mayber there is hope left for them.

 

The difference looks nothing short of amazing.

Fortunately with glass tops I don't have to worry about that. Unfortunately glass adds weight. Heh.

 

one last word of advice.

I realize now I was a tad heavy handed on the edges, . . I think I removed too much material around the inner edge, so now the tops squeak when driving over rough roads.

(I already scored a new set thou - already to be restored)

So -- the edges are practiacally hidden under the mouldings anyway, so just dont go crazy trying to get them as smooth and perfect as the rest of the top. Leave that lip on the edge.