Painting Hard Top Question

[ganktime]

I am looking into having my hard top repainted. The current paint is probably 20 years old and scratched up and has minor flaking going on (no rust).

Should I take the glass and rubber seals off to repaint it? And if so do I need to buy all new rubber seals?

Thank you for any tips or advice on repainting or having the hard top repainted.

 

[NCSUWoj]

I would highly recommend taking the glass out. Makes it much easier to sand/prep and paint. More than likely the seals are cracked up in the corners anyway. They are not hard to re-install just be careful to not break your glass getting them out.
At the end of the day though, you can tape them up and paint around the seals if you are ok with that. All depends on what you are going for.

 

[pcf_mark]

I would remove them too. The finish product looks better and lasts much longer. Taking the side glass out is easy with a little patience. They push out from the inside. Start in the corner and work your way across the top working the glass out with the gasket still on it. You are "unrolling" it off the top basically. The old Ford parts fit and work better than any replacement so if the are still spongy re-use them.

 

[bajabronc]

I had the hard top on my Stroppe redone this spring and my recommendation would be
1. remove all of your glass - and get new window seals
2. remove all of the old seam sealer from the drip rail, paint with some etching primer, re-seam seal and paint again
3. remove the seam sealer from the side of the top where it meets up with the drip rail if it has any, if not clean that seam up really well - on most of our tops the crack that goes all along the top and will be visible, etching primer again, and then put new seam sealer all along that area. If not even after paint the big crack will come back
4. If you have the time before painting to put another cross bow along the top it will help with support and the canning problem our tops have

 

[ganktime]

Thank you all the helps me a lot on handling the top.