STILL a really bad idea
Posted by MrG on July 11, 2002 at 16:58:56:
In Reply to: Hardtop/Softtop REVISITED ** MR. G, got a reply for you. posted by Nicholas Orros on July 11, 2002 at 15:34:04:
. A person *CAN* put a railway engine in a roller skate -- it's just a matter of whether such a thing is worth the time, effort and cost.
. You *CAN* mangle up your SW like this but it's not smart. Besides the cost, you will kill the value of your vehicle.
. There are other considerations. The ST was built with a full structure inside the body to support the body and the B/C cage hoop. Do you intend to take the upper body structure off and just stick the hoop on without these supports? If so, you're likely to find that the upper body doesn't fit the next time you try to put it back on because the lower body will have distorted. And the SW has fittings to hold the upper body structure on -- if you take the roof structure off, you will have lots of metal (brackets, tubes, the inner cage loop on the SW) hanging out in the weather. These parts are not designed for an external environment and you'll have rust problems.
. Also, what are you going to do about the wiring and ducting for the rear window heater, wiper and washer? Will you take that off each time you take the upper body structure off? What about the dome light - you'll have to rewire this each time, too. And sunvisors and interior trim around the windscreen. Don't forget your "A-pillar" cage, too - the version on the SW is not compatible with the B/C hoop on the ST.
. Also, you're right, you'll have lots of trouble with the doors. You can leave the driver and passenger doors in place but they're not designed to have their top halves flapping around without the support of the rigid frame. You're likely to have door frame and glass problems. Also, the rear door is completely different - you're looking at a new door (with different hinges, which will mean different mounting points on the rear body) and a swing-away frame to carry the spare (the weight of a spare would bust the small half-door to bits in days).
. And how will you keep your plain-cloth seat covers dry and mold-free? What about your carpets (OK, "Rhino" might help there). And your side facing seats will become much more dangerous without the body structure to restrain the occupants - do you plan to take them out or put in head restraints?
. This entire project would *very* difficult to get it to work even poorly -- and orders of magnitude more difficult to get it to work well. You might get it to work, but you're either going to have to spend LOTS of money to get it all modified or it's going to be a carved up mess (not what you want to do to your vehicle beside the issue of value). And you're talking about days of work to convert it back and forth each time.
. I had a fibreglass top that I sold to a friend of mine. Before he got the fibreglass top, he drove his D-90 around with no top for about 8 months out of the year (he lives in NC). After we put the glass top on, he never took it off again -- and they only take about an hour to remove or refit! (And, by the way, the fibreglass tops for the ST are fibreglass. They're made by a company in England of a material called "GFRP" -- that's Glass Fibre Reinforced Plastic. That's what all "fibreglass" is. You know that "fibreglass" IS plastic, right?)
. It reminds me of the time in college that we made a friend's old Pontiac Bonneville into a convertible. We used a hacksaw. Yeah, we did it but it made a mess of the car - which got rain into the electrics and died soon after. You're talking about a REALLY BAD IDEA here.
MrG
