First, I hope that everyone had a healthy and pleasant holiday season. My New Year's wish is for everyone to have many safe and enjoyable driving miles in this year.
My dilemma:
Recently, I bought a hard top for my S5 Alpine. I could see that it definitely would need work to get it in usable condition. All the gaskets were bad as were the windows and head liner. The exposed sheet metal seemed in decent condition with a little surface rust here and there. Unfortunately, once the gaskets and liner were removed, a very bad rust condition was exposed. Holes in the metal channels were found at all four corners, particularly under the back side windows. So, what should I do?
Option 1: Save the hardware parts off the top. Trash the sheet metal and hope to find another top in decent condition that maybe is missing some of the parts or sell the parts to someone who needs them to finish his own project.
Option2: Find someone to repair/replace the bad sheet metal, have the top repainted and buy the necessary parts to complete the top.
Option 1 would seem to be best from a financial standpoint. Option 2 would at least double (triple?) my costs but I like the idea of restoring the hard top but would I have a decent top when it was finished? I recall something said to me when I first got my car - "Throw nothing away".
I'm posting this hoping someone who attempted (completed?) a similar project could offer some advice or suggestions. Any info at all would be aprecidated.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
My dilemma:
Recently, I bought a hard top for my S5 Alpine. I could see that it definitely would need work to get it in usable condition. All the gaskets were bad as were the windows and head liner. The exposed sheet metal seemed in decent condition with a little surface rust here and there. Unfortunately, once the gaskets and liner were removed, a very bad rust condition was exposed. Holes in the metal channels were found at all four corners, particularly under the back side windows. So, what should I do?
Option 1: Save the hardware parts off the top. Trash the sheet metal and hope to find another top in decent condition that maybe is missing some of the parts or sell the parts to someone who needs them to finish his own project.
Option2: Find someone to repair/replace the bad sheet metal, have the top repainted and buy the necessary parts to complete the top.
Option 1 would seem to be best from a financial standpoint. Option 2 would at least double (triple?) my costs but I like the idea of restoring the hard top but would I have a decent top when it was finished? I recall something said to me when I first got my car - "Throw nothing away".
I'm posting this hoping someone who attempted (completed?) a similar project could offer some advice or suggestions. Any info at all would be aprecidated.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.