It took three days, but dad and I managed to replace the convertible top on the Mustang, and install the new headlights. I don’t think anyone will mistake anything for a professional job, but the sucker is on there, and I don’t think it looks bad for our first try. Especially when you consider that we had no instructions, and no prior experience. The process was arduous to say the least, even more so than I had originally thought it would be, and I definitely didn’t go into this thinking it would be a walk in the park.
The top comes in two pieces, the top part, and the rear window part, and the rear window part was by far the most difficult portion of the installation. It involved trimming cutouts out of the edge of the fabric and then wrapping it around a retaining bar to tighten it up. Part of the difficulty was that the new top was considerably larger than the old one, so when I used the old top to cut notches in the new one we ended up with the piece sitting very loose. A further disadvantage was that I had broken out the rear window some time ago, so we didn’t have a good model to look at as we made adjustments. Not until we had the top piece over the rear piece could we see that we should have tightened it up more, and due to my fatigue and time running out I figured I could live with it as is. Perhaps in the future we could try to make it look better, but that’s a pretty big IF.
Overlaying the top was challenging in that you have to navigate it around the curve of the side bars, and keep it from wrinkling up. It took a couple of tries, but we got that taken care of. The part of the top piece that overlays the rear window was a bit off when we looked at it last, but it wasn’t bad enough to warrant pulling it all off again and starting over. Again, maybe in the future we could try repulling it.
The funny thing is that this is all held in with staples, and if I never have to staple anything again it will be too soon. Every time we had to adjust the rear part or the rear sides we would have to pull staples out and then staple the fabric back to the bar. This was fine except for parts where there was too little space on the bar, or when you accidentally shot a staple into your finger because you were a little to close to the bolt hole. There were a lot of staples laying about the carport by the time we were done. Speaking of those staples reminds me: Of course while we were doing all of this my grandparents would come over to see how we were progressing. My grandmother even helped hold the rear glass up for us for awhile, which was appreciated. One of the challenges of installing the rear piece is that the glass is heavy and pulls down while you’re trying to pull up. My grandfather was our most frequent visitor, and I could tell he wanted to help, but at 83 years of age he can’t quite contribute like he used to. So eventually he showed up with his industrial magnet on a rope and used that to pick up the loose staples.
With the rear portions done, and the mid portion in place, the final challenge of installation was getting the front pulled around the first bar, the part that clamps into the front windshield. We ended up getting it pulled pretty well, but the drivers side was left with a little ripple in it. It isn’t bad and by that point we were on our third day, I was tired and ready to go home, so we didn’t putz around with it anymore. It looks good enough, and I figure it looks so much better than it did with a big patched rip in it that I could cope with a few ripples. Like the other parts we didn’t get quite right I might try to talk dad into redoing it.
I had imagined that this would be a difficult project, but I didn’t think it would take us three days of consistent work to get it done. Granted had we had instructions, or a guide, or something it wouldn’t have taken so long, but since we were doing it on the fly we had to learn as we went. I think if we did it again it wouldn’t take near so long, really the process isn’t terribly difficult and I think patience is the key tool…and staples. I can’t give enough kudos and credit to my dad who kept me going, who’s expertise in tools and calm demeanor made it at all possible. There was a certain point where I was despairing adamantly that we’d never get it back on. Doing this with my father was one of the main reasons I wanted to try replacing a convertible top in the first place, because I’m not sure it was worth doing it as a money saving exercise. I regret sometimes that I didn’t spend more time with him doing projects while I was growing up, not that we didn’t spend plenty of time together, but I wish that I had learned more of his mechanical skill and general knowledge when I had the opportunity. That said it was an absolute blast taking on this project together, and spending three days with him. And to top it off the old man and I worked pretty well together, despite constantly misplacing our tools. In that regard it was worth doing it, completely.