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Spitfire Spitfire top... yea or nay

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skucera

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I'm thinking about buying the cheaper of the two Spitfire tops available from British Parts Northwest. Has anyone bought that one, rather than the Robbins top? If so, how do you like it?

Although I'm not likely to buy it, I'm curious if anyone has bought a top from Prestige Auto Top in England? If so, how do you like it?

Scott
 
Check out TRF. I installed one of their tops on my Spit and it fit perfectly. Looks great and stands up to elements. Good price too!

Good luck,
 
I should close the loop on this question. In the end I decided to get a Robbins top from British Parts Northwest. It is exquisitely made. Like all tops that I've put on, they optimistically put only enough snaps in the kit to do the job, none extra in case you screw one up. And I screwed one up, so off I went to my wife's favorite craft store to get some more.

The Robbins top is cut to exactly the right size, so when I got it tensioned properly around the header bar, there wasn't any extra cloth that needed to be trimmed away... none. That is a marked difference from my Midget top, which included an extra 3" of cloth at the header bar. That top had been made by Kee, and when I trimmed away the extra, I was amazed that it was so precisely 3", as if they'd designed it to be that way.

I also got a new header seal from VB, along with lots of other little hardware bits. My old header seal had collapsed years ago, so a previous owner glued a rubber door seal to that, which also collapsed. That new header seal really takes some force to clamp down!

Also, the little steel channels for the header seal that need to be pop-riveted to the header bar require an extension on the post of the pop-rivet to allow the pop-rivet to reach the bottom before pulling the bead through. I found some nifty polished aluminum cylindrical beads at the craft shop that fit around the pop-rivet post to allow me to reach that 1/8" down into the channel. Craft stores are pretty handy, and I think I was the only guy in there.

Scott
 
Scott
Good trick, also one I read elsewhere and used it to take the screw on tip of a spark plug off and use it. You can even grind it down if the rivet has a short pull length.
 
I will have to buy a top very soon. Your information has been very helpful. Thanks for posting the update and your observations!
 
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