[StingrayLust]

Ever since I bought my car last August, one glaring item that has bugged me has been that the t-tops never sat down like they should. This is what they looked like:

You can see that it's nowhere near flush with the rest of the body. Not knowing exactly what was causing my tops to fit, I took them to Corvette Specialties here in Minneapolis to see if they were odd sized in any way. Turns out they weren't and with the little blue spray on them I believe they are the originals to the car (used to be blue and is now red). So I looked at some of the t-tops they had there and compared them to mine. I found that the weatherstripping, which I could tell had been poorly replaced, seemed like it might be the culprit. The rear rubber that goes from the glass over to the center of the car, the very first part of it seemed a lot thicker and harder than the replacement stuff they were selling in the shop. Here you can see the thickness difference:

So I bought some new weatherstripping at CS and I'm in the middle of installing it. I have the old stuff off, now I need to use my 3M 08984 adhesive cleaner to get rid of the old stuff. That's a bit tough as it smells so I can't do it inside the house, might have to wait for a warmer day outside than 15 degrees so I don't freeze.

Here is how the top sits now without ANY weatherstripping:

It now sits flush with the body and the new weatherstripping is much softer and thinner than the other stuff that was on it that it shouldn't add much height.


This thread is dedicated to that process. Here are some pics:

I'll post more as I go along.

 

[GS81vett]

I have the SAME issue. I put on the drivers side with corvette rubber. It is hard to get the T top on and it sits a bit higher then the body line. I can not do more until warmer as you so I will watch this thread. I was going to take her to a shop and have them do it because I don't want to for one...:lookinup: and I need to replace the doors and hood and it is a pain in the butt with no garage to work in. So we will watch your progress.

 

[StingrayLust]

Bubba strikes again

So late last night I finally unravelled exactly what a previous owner had messed up so badly. At first, I just thought they had used a cheap, inferior weatherstripping product that we hear so much about on DC. Turns out they had used weatherstrip for late 77-82 vettes, which had the embedded metal in them and 18 instead of 19 pins. It now makes sense as to why the existing weatherstripping had so many pins that weren't correctly inserted, they didn't line up. The 77-82 stuff also has a thicker core from what I've found out.

Now I need to buy me a weatherstrip retainer for the driver side as they completely forgot to put it in, but they did have it on the passenger side. :WTF

So my list of things Bubba did wrong to this car grows and the number of Bubba's still left on the car is one less. artyon:

More to come...

 

[zwede]

I love it how they glued the wrong part of the weatherstrip to the t-top! :laughing:

 

[StingrayLust]

I love it how they glued the wrong part of the weatherstrip to the t-top! :laughing:

It's crazy isn't it. You would think that those holes not lining up for them would have made them pause and go "hmmm somethings not right here". Instead they said "I'll be damned if I'm not going to make it fit!" which they did with horrible results fitment wise and I think it's leaking. The original weatherstripping, almost regardless of condition, would have been better left alone than what was done here. There was more glue on parts that shouldn't have had glue on them than there was on parts that should have glue on them.

The other work done on this car is of the same "quality".