Wood for convertible top

[Griz]

The wooden bits attached to the convertible top on my BJ7 were very rotted and broken when I removed them. I've since order new wood and am ready to install. It seems to me that I remember that the original wood was wrapped in black vinyl. I've checked Moment and Anderson's restoration guide but did not see any reference to how they were finished. Were they wrapped in vinyl that was the same color of the top material, or were they wrapped in black regardless of the color? My new top is tan.

Griz

 

[Randy Forbes]

The pieces on this BJ8 were a beige vinyl, long since becoming stained and dingy__no amount of cleaning seemed to help__so I painted them in as similar a color as I could find (the picture doesn't reproduce the color well).

The vinyl used was very, very thin, as if there were no fabric backing, and quite stiff, almost like vacuum-formed plastic, though it was secured with staples. Fortunately, these wooden pieces had the minimalist amount of rot, and was easily repaired with Plastic Wood filler.

 

[Griz]

Thanks for the reply Randy. Since my original post I've been nosing around and got lucky and found several of the old wooden pieces, and they are wrapped in very thin vinyl as you say. Mine appear to have been beige but painted black where visible. I was thinking about paining mine as you did.

Griz

 

[bob hughes]

FWIW
My old girl (BJ7) came with black vinyl fitted so I just removed the old black repaired the wood where necessary and replaced the vinyl with new black. Not sure if the old was factory fitted but the bits that were good looked as if they were factory installed. - Black soft top.



Bob