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Just purchased a hardtop for my 95 convertible, was so excited to receive it this morning, well, im missing all the hardware to connect it, ordered the metal brackets already and they should arrive within few days, now the top is missing the rear pivots, I took off the ones from the convertible top and tried to install them on the hardtop, took me awhile to place them correctly but I did it, took the car for a ride and made a u-turn at the end of the street, it rattles badly, now, I hate ahortcuts and can't stand squeaks while driving, can't find anything online, where can I get the original pieces? Should I just buy 2 new pivots and fabricate my own brackets? Can someone take a photo of that piece so I would know what to look for?
By the rear pivots, do you mean these ?
The ones off the soft top latch in, while the hardtop uses bolts for a more secure fit. With all the proper hardware installed you should not have any rattles, my 89 with 80k does not.
Yes, this pieces are missing, so the hardtop comes with bolts? Interesting, I'll check if I can buy them, I saw few for sale but the description was pathetic.
Yes, this pieces are missing, so the hardtop comes with bolts? Interesting, I'll check if I can buy them, I saw few for sale but the description was pathetic.
My top is on already for the season, otherwise I would take a few pics for you. They are hollow tubes that have bolts in the center. https://www.wholesalegmpartsonline.c...roduct=2545178
This listing has some halfway decent pics of them if you zoom in. You need #s 10-16, although 11 & 15 are the only pieces that are specialized.
I have some pictures of what you need on my phone. I went through this myself. The previous owner didn't have the rear parts on the top. He just bolted it straight to the cover. VERY hard for me to find. I wound up finding someone with a damaged top for sale but too far away. Gave him over half what he wanted for the top for what I needed. If you'd like the pictures pm me your email or cell # and I can send you the pictures. Good luck.
Received them. Now have to find time to get something made up or try myself. Travel for a living so only home few days a week.
Thank you for taking your time to get them.
Thank you so much for the help, I had no time to visit my brother, he's a fabricator but his shop is in LA and I'm in the bay area.
The drawings helped me understand how this thing work and I went to Home Depot to shop around, I got two m6 bolts that we're long anough to reach the top from the bottom of the bracket, few washers and few rubber pieces, I also got 2 plastic sleeves that went in perfectly, attached are some photos of what I did which worked perfectly, not even one squeak on my test drive.
The wingnuts are a good idea as it makes it easy to tighten the bolts correctly. When you position the hardtop so that the bolts stick thru the hardtop bracket you can snug down the encapsulated bolts in the windshield header but don't tighten them, Insert the two steel brackets into the hardtop pillar and loosely thread in the bolts. The one vertical bolt at the bottom of the bracket is used for a final positioning of the top. Then snug those wing nuts down so that the weatherstripping on the bottom of the hardtop just starts to squeeze out beyond the hardtop edge. tighten upper the B-pillar bracket bolts and then tighten the windshield header bolts and the wingnuts. Use the vertical bolts in the brackets as a final adjustment. Then tighten the other 8 bracket bolts.
It's very important to use the two steel B-pillar brackets. Without them, the body can flex and the hardtop can tear out the decklid brackets. With everything installed correctly (including the underbody X-brace), the C4 convertible is actually stiffer than a C4 coupe. The "Halo" bar in the hardtop is the same design as the coupe Halo bar.
11-01-2018, 10:57 PM
Hardtop mounting issue
