03-27-2008, 03:56 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Redondo Beach, CA
Posts: 217
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 Quote:
Originally Posted by alfazagato
I am just at this stage with the soft top for my Spider. The critical part appears to be the correct spacing of the bars as this affects the shape, profile, of the hood and the way in which it folds. The spring on the first bar appears to be for ornamentation only and the two other move freely in the wind. I did measure the spacing of the bearers before I disassembled but, frankly, I do not have any idea if this was a factory dimension or not. How are you positioning the bars
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Here is what I have observed from the process and from talking with the upholstery guy. There is a sleeve on the underside of the top for each of the front two bows. That is the easy part. I am assuming that the top that you buy is detailed enough to have them, and is made to original specifications.
Anyway, the middle bow has a stop to it so that it can only go so far forward. When the bow is up against the stop, the top seems to fit about right. The front bow needs to go quite a ways back to fit into the sleeve, but a test fit showed us that the shape of the top is about right when we do that.
The back bow took the most thinking. We measured a few times and took a look at the marks on the old webbing. Finally it made sense to us that the back bow need to go on or just next to the seam in that area. When we lined up the bow with the seam, the bow was very nearly vertical.
What is more difficult is getting the webbing right. I needs a cut and a re-sew just rear of the back bow. I let my upholstery guy get that right--I would mess it up for sure.
I also had to fuss with the lip on the very front of the frame as well as the positioning of the mounting plates in the back. The top frame that I have might have been a little wonky, causing an uneven gap between the metal lip and the top chrome windshield piece. I used an adustable wrench (spanner) set very narrow to gradually bend that lip to get a more even gap across the windshield. I'll know if I got it right later tonight.
I hope that helps.
Jon
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