abiazis

Good advice.......these tops are like an adventure that never ends.

My last adventure involved the top twisting unevenly on the way up and breaking the main cross bow frame along the back near the window and tearing the top on the side where it adheres to the frame.

I loosened the bolts to drop the top so I could drive home with vision out the back......... the top main bow frame that broke would have been $ 7K new to replace, but my shop repaired the break with some creative machine/welding work involving a portion from an old frame and it cost me $1K.

My top guy that did that repair actually shortened the cables as he claims it provides for smoother operation over the long term and has less room for error in the potential of an uneven raising of the top. I have to agree it has worked better over the last two years.

I am on my second top and headliner in 20 plus years and third elastic strap replacement on the bar that gets the top out of the way of the pins before they close down.

I still always watch to make sure the bar flips the canvas out of the way EVERY time, as the previous owner of my car let the top frame pins pierce the previous top in 2 places on passenger side that I patched from the inside when I first bought the car and those patches lasted 13 years.

In counting the top latch recall back in the day, the top is on its third left top latch, and second right top latch, which are easy to replace in minutes and I buy them from Vertex rebuilt for about $ 400 with exchange.

Have not gone manual, as I am probably a bit stubborn in keeping the electronics working, as the car is mechanically perfect in every way with spark plug wires needing replacement soon.....