REPLACING VINYL HOOD

Has anyone repleced the vinyl only on a cabby hood ?

Seen the vinyl for sale on Fleebay for 150 quid and seems like a reasonable option ?  I'm not too bothered if it is a long and drawn out job as long as no specialist tools are required.

Thanks

check out the how2 sections, there is an excellent guide in there

Thanks for that.  Looks well within my capabilities.  
May need new undies whilst I'm cutting out the rear window though  8O  8O
I'm not in any rush to get it done, so can do it over a few weekends.

Hubby did mine a few years ago using the guide.

Took him a weekend but was taking his time and working through it step by step.

Reckons he could do it in a day now hes done one. And yes, he was having a bit of a moment as he put the knife in the back for the first cut, but once started he found it wasnt quite as scary as he was expecting!

3 and half years later and mines still as watertight as it was when it was done!  8)

Did mine a couple of years ago and was fairly straight forward using the guide on here, although cutting the hood for the back window is well scary.

There are three cables in the hood; one that holds the hood in place above the boot and one down each side that pulls the hood down over the door seals. There is a good chance that the ones on the car will be quite old and its probably best to replace them too ( my rear one was a bit rusy and there were none in the sides :dontknow: ).

The cabel round the back has to take a lot of tension and I had the unfortunate experience of spending about half an hour tightening up the old cable only to have the itsnap on me. I then had to beg the use of a friends garage for a week until a new one arrived in the post. I would recomend replacing all the cables too as they are only £25 from carhoods direct.

You mentioned that the hood was on ebay for £150, Carhood direct have vinyl roofs for £145 so might be worth just buying the whole lot from them.
happy fitting

Neil

can always do the hood and leave the rear screen till later  

Guys, by Car hoods direct, are you referring to these guys?

http://www.carhood.com/

Has anyone had a roof fitted by them?  Are they good?  Any guide on a fitted price?

The company that supplies hoods and cables is http://www.carhoodsdirect.co.uk/

Havn't use the guys you mentioned but I had to have a new roof fitted recently under my insurance after someone slashed it and the guy reckoned it would have cost around £800 fitted.

Neil

Well I made a start earlier today and things are progressing nicely.  Once I'd disconnected  the front portion I just cut the rear off with a sharp knife, well the bits that didn't just rip  off

So after about an hour to an hour and a half the vinyl is completely removed and i just have some remainders of staples to remove from the rear window and then that's half the job done . The vinyl had definately seen better days and that was a very long time ago  8O
 No major nasty rusty surprises found - which was nice  

Does anybody know where the side cables attach to ? and where I can buy replacement foam strips for under the side pieces ?
cheers

You should find the info about attaching the cables on the guide

http://www.vwgolfmk1.org.uk/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=12313

I would have thought that Carhoods Direct would supply the foams too.

rubjonny said

can always do the hood and leave the rear screen till later  

Drove mine around for a week before the back window was fitted! Well weird!

Pics on here somewhere.

EDIT

found it!

Hey Debs,  nice to see you have a proper VW undergoing resto
Early Bay Danbury ?
I dropped my splitty in for the respray last Saturday after an 18 month resto.
The Golf will be my daily driver once I get the split back.  Running around in a Devon T25 at the mo.

Good spot!  

Its a 70 Dormobile, bit of a long term project though. Loooaaads of welding needing doing. Got most of the panels and stuff, just need some time to get it done!

In the words of Captain Sensible (I think?)

You gotta have a dream……….

 

I'd like to see some pics of the split when you get her back!  8)

Supplied a link, so you can see the work I've done on it.  Hope you like.
http://www.ssvc.org.uk/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=48730
Once painted there'll be lots of pics posted on the SSVC site

All the old roof is now completely removed.  I ran out of enthusiam and time (Lou's Christmas doo last night, so not too lively today) plus there is a little bit of welding needed to repair the frame.

Been skimming through your thread on ssvc and you've done helluva lot of work on that bus! Got a bit worried when I saw you were lacking motivation at one point!   Glad you got your mojo back  

Can't wait to see the finish  8)

Never thought I'd get to an age where i said this  'thank g*d all the snow has finally gone' - Does that make me an old fart  :?

  Had nearly a full day getting the roof sorted out today.  My previous weekends have consisted of an hour or so, due to the weather and cold fingers.  Last weekend al was going well until the cable  snapped  :x when tightening, Oh hum !
  End of play and the vinyl is fitted fastened, glued and sorted   The telescopic dampners are still to re-attach along with the headliner, but it has been a very good day  
   Only the rear window hole left to cut out and attach the vinyl- can feel my arse 'nipping' already  8O   I've fitted many a window using the 'string' method and have no worries about that bit of the proceedings.
   
  For those of you who have done this:-  Did you use any special staples ? We have a stapler at work for ensuring labels stick to pallets etc and i'm wondering if this will be suitable ?

  Debs - Split progressing, but not had chance to get any photos as yet   From the nearside front corner, along the offside and round to the back to the nearside corner are all in primer.

just needs to be a good stapler, i used one o them staple gun things, did the trick. ideally you want stainless staples so they dont rust. if you dont mine having the screen out to redo em once the old uns have rotted then dont worry. though tbh all the hoods ive removed have had what i assume were mild steel staples as all rusted to buggery but no danger of actual hood coming away

Hubby bought himself a heavy duty staple gun to be sure, but I think any good quality gun/staples would do the trick.

yeah make sure its a good un. i tried a cheapie one and it wasn't strong enough to drive the staples all the way in, I had to finish them all off with a hammer!