My Newly Finished Hardtop!!

My son Ed gave me a hardtop for Christmas in 1995. He brought it home strapped to the roof of his 88 Civic! What a sweet present!!

The hardtop was pretty rough. The gel coat was crazed and the cracks went through to the fiberglass layers. The aluminum was pitted and the seals were shot.

After disassembling the hardtop, ordering the seals & sanding it down to the fiberglass it languished until this year while other issues took priority. Well, I finally got it finished. Just in time for the snow!!

http://s721.photobucket.com/albums/ww217/nsweeney_photo/MGB%20Hardtop/

Good job...I know you must be really proud of the result!....How many hours do you think you have in the finished top?

Excellent job! I have one here that needs about the same amount of work. If you are passing by - well the door is open to help :)

Impressively done.

Well, I can't really say how many hours I spent, but I will say that sanding off the gel coat took too long. I sanded it off with a random orbit sander attached to a shop vac to control the dust but there's got to be a faster way. You need to be somewhere where you can be wearing a respirator and use the biggest baddest sander tou can get your hands on. Also, after I stripped the old anodizing off with sodium hydroxide I hand sanded and re-brushed the aluminum prior to re-anodizing, that probably took 10 hours alone! The rest of it I pretty much did it a couple of hours at a time when I had the opportunity to work on it.

Very nice. I'm in the same boat as Naomi - I have one that needs just about as much work. Great inspiration.

Neat job Ned, Looks really great.

Great job! I've got an old Parrish hardtop that I need to refinish. Got the Vinyl off of it a few years ago and have been running it with a quick shot of rattle can finish. I should probably do it up right

Awesome!

Beautiful job! I like the white over red!

It was actually 2005, not 1995... I'd hate for anyone to think it took you 14 years to restore the top :) Here is a before/after comparison:

Great job! Color me impressed!!

Nice. Where did you source the soft parts?

There's more money and man-hours in that top than meets the eye. I finished one recently with new rubber, fiberglass repair and paint.$$$ Nice work Ned, it looks great.

Mine required a fair amount of work, but I can only imagine how much time and work went into yours. Spectacular results. I painted mine the same color as my car, Pale Primrose. RAY

Great job

Mo.........

Stunning job. :thumbup:

Now how do you fancy working your magic on my B. :D