I am in the process of getting ready to paint my hard top. I tried searching weatherstriping but have not found what I was looking for. Where is the best place to buy al new weatherstriping and the new glass seals for all the windows. I have it all apart and it is going to get blasted soon so I need to get this stuff coming. Any help would be great. Thanks
Redoing Hard Top
- Thread starter jefishing
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the one wing window (driver side?) is only available via places like ebay IIRC
What do you plan to prep and paint the fiber glass lid with?
The PO of my FJ40 replaced most of my weatherstripping with items from SOR. Quality appears to be good after three years of service.
The rear lift door seal was not replaced, though, and it was in bad shape. I ordered the one piece aftermarket seal from CCOT, simply because they take the American Distress card. Will see how it works. They have many of the other seals as well, including complete door seal kits. Complete. Including wing windows. Not cheap, but prices are about the same as SOR.
MAF's weatherstrip link is dead. It appears they don't have any at the moment.
I've ordered from SOR and CCOT (and MAF as well), and all have provided excellent service. The SOR weatherstripping has stood up pretty well on my cruiser. The CCOT rear door aftermarket gasket is not quite half the price of factory gaskets. I won't know the quality until it shows up.
The rear lift door seal was not replaced, though, and it was in bad shape. I ordered the one piece aftermarket seal from CCOT, simply because they take the American Distress card. Will see how it works. They have many of the other seals as well, including complete door seal kits. Complete. Including wing windows. Not cheap, but prices are about the same as SOR.
MAF's weatherstrip link is dead. It appears they don't have any at the moment.
I've ordered from SOR and CCOT (and MAF as well), and all have provided excellent service. The SOR weatherstripping has stood up pretty well on my cruiser. The CCOT rear door aftermarket gasket is not quite half the price of factory gaskets. I won't know the quality until it shows up.
I think you will find that rubber from SOR is really good quality. It is usually molded right. Some other brands need to be slit with and razor to make bends around corners. This I observed on a set of door channel from CCOT a friend installed.
How bought it jefishing - what are you using to coat and paint the top?
How bought it jefishing - what are you using to coat and paint the top?
Depends on how bad the top is. My top had some spider cracks along the front eyebrow. I ground off the finish coat to the mat and used some cloth and glass to stiffen it up. I also refilled the gutter with resin after sanding and cleaning out cracks. I then (over the cloth and glass) used some kitty hair filler to fill in the dips and waves. After sanding it down I used some Rage to finish it off. I then sprayed 3 coats of surfacer. I didn't get it perfect ( missed some small nicks), but it looks pretty good. If all you have are nicks and gouges, sand it down to give it some tooth or remove paint. Use some glaze on the deep scores and such. Spray with a heavy polyester surfacer. Block with a guide coat/soft block and you should get it pretty nice. I didn't want to go to the added expense of buying a polyester surfacer, so I used what I had. Don't forget to treat any rust on the gutter lips with either a self etching primer, por or zero rust.Hugh Heifer said:
If you use the polyester surfacer, you will need a primer gun with a large tip. The stuff is basically liquid filler. The kitty hair filler is tough stuff to sand. If you use some get it as close as posible before setting & use a cheese grater before the stuff has totally hardened.
DONT sand the inside of the rain gutter to much.dont ask me why
Hey llih,
I'm in the process of refinishing my hardtop also. I've been trying to read up on it, but so far all I've gotten is more confused. What did you use to repair the fiberglass? Is it one of those kits you find at Pep Boys, and is that a polyesther resin or epoxy?
Also, like hugh, I'm interested in how you finish the hardtop. Some people have recommended to use a marine gel coat, but after talking to a couple of boat guys, they are recommending against it and say to just go with a 2 part epoxy paint.
Cruiser88,
I gotta ask, why don't you want to sand the inside of the rain gutter? Are you talking about not sanding off the rivets while it's attached, or when you have it off the fiberglass?
For the weatherstripping, there is someone on this forum that sells type of generic hardtop weatherstripping on ebay. I dunno what the quality is like or how good it is, but that's the cheapest I've seen compared to SOR or CCOT.
I'm in the process of refinishing my hardtop also. I've been trying to read up on it, but so far all I've gotten is more confused. What did you use to repair the fiberglass? Is it one of those kits you find at Pep Boys, and is that a polyesther resin or epoxy?
Also, like hugh, I'm interested in how you finish the hardtop. Some people have recommended to use a marine gel coat, but after talking to a couple of boat guys, they are recommending against it and say to just go with a 2 part epoxy paint.
Cruiser88,
I gotta ask, why don't you want to sand the inside of the rain gutter? Are you talking about not sanding off the rivets while it's attached, or when you have it off the fiberglass?
For the weatherstripping, there is someone on this forum that sells type of generic hardtop weatherstripping on ebay. I dunno what the quality is like or how good it is, but that's the cheapest I've seen compared to SOR or CCOT.
projektdotnet said:
i've got a wing window weatherstrip...i think it's passenger side, but if anybody needs it, let me know.
malphrus
I used the epoxy, its supposed to be stronger. I believe the polyester would work too. The main thing is the prep. Sand it with something like 80-100 grit to give the new resin some tooth. Don't use that coarse of grit on anything but the areas your going to repair. My gutters were cracked and missing some flakes of resin. On the gutters I didn't sand too much, just enough to get rid of any loose stuff and clean them up. I also sprayed the metal with zero rust. On the front eyebrow you need to be careful of the large rivets. They are soft and easy to sand off with a sander. On the areas that were cracked I ground off the gel coat with a 4 inch grinder and a 60 grit sanding disk. I went down to the mat. I used cloth and epoxy to reinforce the area. I then built it up with kitty hair. Using both really stiffened up the front eyebrow. The kitty hair is tough stuff. I just brushed some resin in the gutters. It seemed to seal the cracks pretty good. After sanding the kitty hair down, I used some filler to finish. I found an article on the web that showed a vette hood being repaired. They did it the exact same way that I did the top. I figured if it was good enough for a vibrating hood, it would work on the top. After sanding the complete top with 320 I shot 3 coats of surfacer. I sanded it down with 400 and put the finish on. I believe the polyester surfacer would work better, as it was what was used in the article and because it's thicker. My top had some small nicks and gouges that the surfacer I used didn't fill completely. I missed them when I was doing the final inspection before paint. If you look at the roof close you can see them. The thicker surfacer would have filled them. Some of the new surfacers are thick enough that a couple of coats will bury a quarter. I used urethane as a final finish.ducktapeguy said:
I don't know about the weather stripping. I didn't take mine apart. I have a SoCal cruiser, so rust isn't much of a problem. I sprayed the inside with zero rust. I figured it would be easy to touch up or I could put urethane over it later.
THanx llih. THat was good info. In light of the question and becasue I happened tobe picking up some etching primer today, I ran into a guy who seemed a decent authority. He mentioned a product called Feather Fill. He said he has used it while redoing Vettes. It is a thick bottom coat like you refered to. It is about $20 a quart. He said he used a VO sander the a long block sander fir smothing. THen shot it with two to three coats of regular primer - not epoxy primer - block sanding between each coat, then base coat/clear coat. Certainly all that elbow grease will afford a great smooth coat so long as your spray technique is good and you clean all the sanding schlag off. He said for cleaning before the feather fill and before the primer do not use a degreaser, use laquer thinner.
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Sorry it took so long to get back we are trying to get the paint booth finished so we can pull the cruisers in. It took alot of beer to hang drywall tonite it must be thursday. So I asked my painter aka brother in law about the top. He said we will strip it to the first layer of fiberglass then use a epoxy primer I think he said ppg 207, then just block the crap out of it. He said they used to use some sort of fiberglass filler on old cars but it never lasted, he said fiberglasss is really hard to deal with it. I am not building a show fj40 it will get scratched and dented. I will take his word for it though he has being doing this for along time, and I am not a painter by any means just the guy who swings a hammer and learns about this as I go. Sorry I am rambling I have had way to much 
tonite. Later Jim
tonite. Later Jim
I don't believe there is much difference between the lacquer thinner and the degreaser, other than the fact that the lacquer thinner flashes faster. Degreaser flashes slower and allows you time to wipe it off with a clean dry rag, thus removing grease and dirt. In hot weather the lacquer thinner flashs so quickly that it dries before you can wipe it. I used the petroleum based pre-paint degreaser that I had and it worked great. Just give it a few minutes to dry good before spraying. I would wipe the parts down first, then go and mix the paint. By the time I got the paint mixed the surface was dry.
For sanding I used a block on the rough stuff, sanded the filler with a foam block, then sanded the entire top with an orbit sander.
Here is the article that I used as a guide.
http://www.chevyhiperformance.com/tech/paint_body/bodywork/0602ch_repairing_fiberglass_body_panels/
For sanding I used a block on the rough stuff, sanded the filler with a foam block, then sanded the entire top with an orbit sander.
Here is the article that I used as a guide.
http://www.chevyhiperformance.com/tech/paint_body/bodywork/0602ch_repairing_fiberglass_body_panels/
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