2 GUYS IN OVER THEIR HEADS

This is the somewhat, but not super, technical description of a roof swap carried out by myself and GT86FASTBACK. GT is also running a paint thread on turning his now hardtop roofed red car into yellow.

After contacting him about his swap add he posted in the mall, I decided 5 1/2 hours was not the worst thing in the world to go from near Cincy to near Pittsburgh. Should be a breeze. So I loaded up every tool I needed and many I did not and started out at 7:30AM. The drive was just gorgeous, perfect weather, not too hot. On my way out of the neighborhood, this what looks to be chow puppy decided it could survive a collision with a little ole Fiero, because it bolted right out in front of me. I shooed it back toward what I thought was its home, and took a few pics, since it was cute. (Aww Aww Aww)




Then I set out on a long trek. On the way I snapped a few pics of where I was going through. A little fuzzy, but the first pic is Zanesville, OH. It's birthplace of Zane Gray, progenitor of 'The Western' and author of 'Riders of the Purple Sage'. No time to stop, however.


As I got into Pittsburgh proper, some 240 miles later, I saw a lot of bridges and the three rivers. I was a bit tired and I needed to pack a thermos of coffee to stay awake. Mom bought me that years ago, it has been a staple of every trip I have ever taken longer than 2 hours. Here's that stuff:



Now let's get down to business. It started getting warm by the time I arrived at GT's house. We parked my car in the driveway, and I took some before pics to show my hardtop roof and the bad paint GT is now covering up. Here's some shots of that:




He just parked his sunroof-equipped 86gtfastback(as his name implies) in his garage so we would not get beat down by the sun. Personally, I just wish we had a fan on us at all times, because I was sweating no matter what. I'm serious, I was fairly sweating my haggids right off. GT already had his interior stuff stripped out, so we got the wipers and cowl off, and unbolted all the 10mm on the top pf both fenders. (And here you thought by now this had no technical value!) You just remove them so the can be pulled to the side and slide the bottome of the roof clip past. But not yet.

Next we removed all the 10mm bolts and nuts holding the roof down. We ran into some problems.. one screw was spinning the nut it was in, and we could not even get a screwdriver or anything in there to get it to stop. So GT proceeds to dremel it out. He takes a broken blade to the face, and makes a hasty move to don his safety glasses. Safety first, boys and girls, and no one lost an eye, so no harm no foul. That darn dremel tool.


We then removed the bolts under the windshield cowl. Now all we needed to do was lift it off. Well...... it was not easy, and unfortunately we did do a little damage in two areas. It did not bust or break, but it has a few cracks that will need fixing. It is my experience that the sunroof-equipped cars always have more Butyl Tape/Rope holding down the roof, making it much harder to pry without some damage. But EVENTUALLY we started getting through that sticky stuff with a sharp kitchen knife and some prying. There was just TONS of the sealant in there, and we kept cutting and cutting unti we had a huge ball of this stuff. We placed cardboard under the A-arms where we cut. We also used a heat gun and a guitar string, to some success. Truly, we had the best luck just prying gently and cutting wherever gaps presented themselves. The actual roof lift took almost an hour on just GT's car, because of the absolute excess of butyl rope sealant.




After we placed it on the grass, and leaned it on a bucket, we proceeded to take my car apart in short order.. suddenly we are 'experts', you know? So we are flying on removing everything, and prepare for the grudge match part two against my car. No such luck.. the roof literally 'pops' right off with only about 45 seconds of prying. It was unreal. My guesses are this: It sat in the direct sun for the whole trip and while we were doing the other one. In our quest to 'stay cool' we probably let the sealant cool down enough, as well, to make removal that much harder. Another theory is this: This car spent it's whole life in Anaheim, and the last 5 years sitting outside in the sun. It killed the paint to be sure, but it also rotted every rubber piece exposed on the outside.. I had to replace a lot of stuff like the windshield trim, dew wipes, door seals, etc.. because they were crispy critters. My guess is the butyl rope also had been heated up enough over time, it was just useless.




Anyhow, that pleased us greatly, and GT especially since he got a perfect roof that needed no body work. Mine will be fine, as well, just a little bit of work to smooth out two cracks. We set both roofs in the sun for a minute, and took a few shots.






GT had a buddy stop by who sat there and watched us wrench. What a guy! Anyhow, we did it, and had fun doing it. We threw the roof back on my car, which I will remove again later for repairs and re-sealing, and I I headed back for home. I had to drive through a little strip of West Virginia, where to my surprise there were some crazy drivers. Car in front of me kept braking hard, and I was aware of it. However, some who came right up on my butt at the same time the person in front of me was braking hard did not know what was coming. I saw him coming in my rear view, and swerved left to avoid getting hit. This is one lane construction traffic, and we are in the far left lane, so I have a bit of a shoulder. On our right is barrels. The guy behind me sees he is gonna hit the person in front of me, and I swerved otherwise I would have been tagged for sure. So the guy behind me swerves right, into a barrel. He spins and is going reverse diagonal and gets hit by the car behind him.. I had no one behind me on that road for a little while after that.

Lessons learned- plan and pack for anything. We were completely prepared, the worst thing was we kept losing the knife! Keep your car in the sun for at least an hour before you actually pull it, talk about easier. Also use a heat gun and guitar string n the a-arms after you pry up a gap.. this will let you glide it through the butyl rope more easily. Wear thick gloves when using the guitar string. The front corners right above the a-arm have a 1 1/2" or so long bolt that is a BEAR to cut around, as well as the hardest part of lift off. It helps to push from under the bolt, but be careful because you might break the bolt's casing in the roof off.. and then you gotta rely on jb-weld or something similar to hold it down.

If you want to try this, I say go for it. We were literally two guys who were not pro mechanics, but we both like working on our fieros. This was actually quite a lot of fun, and I was thinking it would be. Keep a positive frame of mind and it will be a challenge, not a chore.

Enjoyed the show. Thanks for posting this. I am lookin for a non sunroof top. I want to get rid of the sunroof crap.

Joe

We aim to please, I will be following GT's paint thread to see how his car is progressing... I will be painting mine soon enough.. I figure to get any "dirty work" out of the way so I don't eff my paint up later, so paint will be a "last thing" deal.

When I removed the roof sections off of my two Fieros it was not the butyl rope that kept the roof from coming up it was the windshield adhesive. The butyl rope is annoying but if it is warm enough it will separate easily. The windshield adhesive gets under the body panel and glues it down. Nothing short of cutting it will allow you to get the roof off without cracking the A-pillars. Nice write up with pics. Thank you.

Charlie

I would be nervous to do this and started nervously reading this. I thought you guys were going to end up with two half roofs. That sucks about the cracks, but they shouldn't be to much trouble to fix

I guess the good news is that paint was going to happen anyway, so the cracks should be no big shake to repair provided I dont make them any worse. .. its the fastener problem that is more concerning... I get a "whistling" in the cabin even though the windows and sunroof are closed.. it is not tightened down all the way since two of the fasteners are still loose on the front clip.. thus: whitsling. (That and I need to put more sealant under there, I was ill-prepared for the switch.) No biggie. I am waiting a week or two before I get up the cahonies to pull the roof off again and make the repairs on the 2 fasteners. I'll post those pics here as well.

I will be going to remove a non sunroof top next weekend to replace my sunroof top.

[This message has been edited by josef644 (edited 06-27-2010).]

I only recommend this further: Do the roof you plan on putting on your car first, that way if it breaks, you did not remove or screw anything up with the roof you aready have. I would not even strip the innards of my car, which only takes 20 min, before I 100% knew the roof I was getting wasnt busted up bad. No sense in creating extra work.

tbone42 do you remember if that glue stuff was underneath the front part at the bottom of the windshield?

Thanks

quote Originally posted by josef644: tbone42 do you remember if that glue stuff was underneath the front part at the bottom of the windshield? Thanks

There should not be any butyl rope seal on the lower edge of the windshield. There will be the windshield adhesive/sealant around the whole perimeter. Hope you don't mind my throwing that in...

Charlie

[This message has been edited by cptsnoopy (edited 06-28-2010).]

quote Originally posted by cptsnoopy: There should not be any butyl rope seal on the lower edge of the windshield. There will be the windshield adhesive/sealant around the whole perimeter. Hope you don't mind my throwing that in... Charlie

Not at all, and thanks for the answer to my question.

Joe

The butyl rope is only on the A-arms and right above the windshield... the rest, as snoopy said, is windshield sealant or something and in this case, the sealant under both cars cowls we did was really brittle and pried up super easily. The back of the roof clip as well was super easy, it was only the gooey-sticky around the windshield top and sides that presented us with any real problems, and only on the GT sunroof car.. the hardtop almost literally flew out of there. It was amazing.

I have some pictures. Click the link in my signature... Or just click here: https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/106413.html

------------------
-Brian

My 87 GT Poly Suspension Upgrade (all pics) thread
Removing the roof panel

[This message has been edited by MulletproofMonk (edited 06-29-2010).]

My oh my oh my Tbone... Quite a write up of our adventure you got here. I love it!!! It was deff a fun one. To everyone who wants to do this, take your time and you will float right through it... Its not hard at all. If anyone around the Pitt area ever wants help doing a similar project, deff let me know. I would be more than glad to help. :-) Good writeup T. +1

Just got thru doing this with josef644....Took maybe 45 minutes to get it off but most the interior was already out of the car. Was easier than what I thought but does require some patience...

quote Originally posted by MstangsBware: Just got thru doing this with josef644....Took maybe 45 minutes to get it off but most the interior was already out of the car. Was easier than what I thought but does require some patience...

Indeed! I was worried about alot of stuff going into this but If you take your time, should be no problem.

quote Originally posted by MstangsBware: Just got thru doing this with josef644....Took maybe 45 minutes to get it off but most the interior was already out of the car. Was easier than what I thought but does require some patience...

Thanks to Stephen's help this wasn't to bad at all. Here it is in the bed of my S-10 truck before we tied it down for the ride 225 mile back home:




Made it home safely, with no damage to the new roof. Thanks for all the help.

Joe Crawford

Here are a few shots of my roof beside the measuring tape. So you know where the butyl is:














And hanging in the garage until I am ready for it. These are pretty flimsy unmounted. I talked to one member who had three in his garage until some one bumped in to them , trashing them out.

Before

and after



Joe

[This message has been edited by josef644 (edited 06-30-2010).]

Wow I did not see your part of the writeup josef.. good job! Hardtops come out easier to be sure, the moonroofs almost always break. Many thanks again to GT86fastback for the moonroof, thanks to Brian for his previous (and very helpful writeup) One last note: If you have a moonroof, the t-nuts and tbolts are accessible through the sunrood gasket.. so if you cannot get a fastener to come loose because it is spinning/broke free, try prying the sunroof gasket up and you can get at those.

Thats a wrap!

[This message has been edited by tbone42 (edited 08-27-2010).]

you said that the butyl rope was only around the windshield and the A pillars. when you reinstalled the roof, what did you use at the rear of the roof to stick it down (seal it)? i thought there was butyl at the rear also. great write up. very injoyable reading.

I don't remember anything being back there to seal it.

quote Originally posted by tbone42: Wow I did not see your part of the writeup josef.. good job! Hardtops come out easier to be sure, the moonroofs almost always break. Many thanks again to GT86fastback for the moonroof, thanks to Brian for his previous (and very helpful writeup) One last note: If you have a moonroof, the t-nuts and tbolts are accessible through the sunrood gasket.. so if you cannot get a fastener to come loose because it is spinning/broke free, try prying the sunroof gasket up and you can get at those. Thats a wrap!

From the pictures there are only two bolts that hold down the rear of the roof. Are these the ones that are accessible thru the sunroof gasket or just the ones to the sides of the sunroof?

quote Originally posted by Rick 88: From the pictures there are only two bolts that hold down the rear of the roof. Are these the ones that are accessible thru the sunroof gasket or just the ones to the sides of the sunroof?

I will go out in my garage and take a look at mine in the morning and let you know how many fasteners there are.

I just went out to look at where the fasteners are. There are two it the front corners that you can see in my photos,


4 in the sunroof 'frame' you can see the forward two in the above photo. Two in about the same place in the rear part of the sun roof frame.

And two on the rear outside edges, pretty well straight back from the two front ones.

Thanks Jose!

PM sent

There are only two studs.

This first one is above the drivers head. There is a nut made in to roof section


Above drivers left shoulder.


Above steering wheel


Above Right side dash area


Above passenger side right shoulder, and above the passenger side head

I think I read back an earlier post that you put the car in the garage to work on it. The butyl rope is a lot easer to work with when it is hot (ie direct sunlight). While it wouldn't feel to great to you guys, it might have been easier to get the roof off.

Thanks for the extra pics Jose!