Duck

One of the local top shops here in the Long Beach, CA area quoted me a price of $350 to replace a plastic window on a top already installed on a frame that is out of the car (I bought the top recently as a replacement for the one currently on the car).

According to the shop, the top must be removed from the frame so the window can be sewn on a machine. There is no guarantee that the top cloth would be in good enough condition to hold the threads properly.

I'm not prepared to spend almost half the cost of a complete new top just to have a window replaced, nor do I wish to discard a top that appears to be to be in excellent condition, except for the window. So I'd like to gather the replacement materials, special tools and sew it in myself. Afterward I'll simply unbolt the top and frame currently on the car and install this one.

Has anyone done this? I searched the forum, no hits came back. Any suggestions where I can get the materials?

sonjaab

From looking at this:
http://www.topsonline.com/index.php?...modelID=208000
I can assume the top and window are one piece and sewn together.

For the same cash you can get a whole new top with the window!

I have done older GMs and the window with or w/o zipper was always a whole seperate piece and simple tension kept it sealed to the top.

Never seen a ASC droptop up close to check.....................Bummer

tavert91

iTrader: (1)

I thought the same thing when the stitching around my rear window started to fail. I restitched about half of the window by hand and it was a terribly hard job. You really need to have the top off of the car and do the stitching with an industrial sewing machine. The fabric and plastic are extremely hard to penetrate with a threaded needle. Leaving the top on the frame will not allow you to work the stitching in a way that can only be done by machine.

When I finished the hand sewing, I was not as pleased with the result as I thought I would be and I took a lot of time trying to get it right. After looking at it for about 6 months, I bought a new top/window replacement and have been pleased ever since. It has lasted about 5 years now and still looks great.

Good luck if you try to do the sewing yourself. I would not recommend you do this by hand but, if you bought the right equipment, you could get the result you are looking for. The material is thick enough to take a second sewing without fear of tearing as your shop thought it might. Its pretty tough and you sew through 2 pieces of fabric as well as the actual window plastic. However, you will probably find the equipment price will prevent you from taking this approach.