Glass window top for '97 to '02 Boxsters

[porscheguy05]

Originally Posted by Brucelee

I would doubt the pre-wiring on any pre 03 Boxes. Since they all had plastic windows up till then, don't see how the wiring would be there.

Make sense?

It is there on my 99. It did not come with the hardtop from the factory, but it still has the hookup, which made me very happy.

[ddb]

All,

I dropped my car off this afternoon to have my new top installed! We opened the box for the first time and looked at the top. The color (Graffiti Gray) and overall quality is beautiful. The installer said the folding creases would be more visible due to the light color; but I don't have a problem with that. The horizontal electric defroster lines are very small (1-2 mm) and are black (or some other very dark color).

The installer raved about the quality of the GAHH products. I saw several big catalogs as well as several boxes in his shop and office. He said he uses a lot of their tops and interior upholstery kits.

The car will be finished late on Thurday or early Friday. I will post pictures as soon as possible.

ddb

[porscheguy05]

I got my GAHH top yesterday through cabrio world, and after recieving it and also instructions from the factory porsche manual on its installation, I decided to take the plung and install it myself. This is my second top I have put on, so I was not going in totally blind, but the other one was on a 61 vette and was a two piece setup that required more adjustment and was a totally different setup. To make a long story short, the shop wanted 9-10n hours of labor, and in six hours of work I was done. It turned out great, and looks like it came from the factory with the glass window. GAHH did a really nice job. They use the same German material as the factory tops, and from the inside the pattern on the fabric even has the same tecture and design. If anyone is considering installing one, it was not too hard, but I would only attempt it if you have some mechanical know how. On my scale of 1 to 10 I would rate it a 5 as far as difficulty, just a little time consuming though. Cabrio World provides a copy of the installation instructions from a porsche factory repair manual, and I only paid 695.00 instead of the GAHH suggested retail of about 950.00 USD. Overall, I am very pleased and would recommend the product to anyone. Please let me know if anyone has any questions.

[MLegere]

Well then.... how about some pic's!!!!!!!

[porscheguy05]

Here are some pics. The lighting was not the greatest, and these are actually pictures of the originalpitures I took. Evidentely I had the resolution set too high when I took them because when I went to upload them to this message it said the file size was too big. So I pulled them up on my computer screen and took lower quality shots. I will try to get some better shots that I can actually post sometime soon.

[larez2]

Thanks for the pictures, and thanks for the cabrio world info - that is a great price!

Hey a few questions:
Did you need any special tools to install the top?

What did you feel was the trickiest/hardest part of the install?

Any other tips or tricks?

There was a guy on this board that installed his own top a little while back, and he recommended against doing it yourself mainly because he couldn't get it tight enough, so it was always flapping.

Thanks,
Larez2

[MLegere]

Porscheguy05

Wow Looks good nice and tight, did you reinstall the liner?

Mike

[porscheguy05]

Did you need any special tools to install the top?

I needed, a T25 and a T15 screwdriver, a utility knife, heat shrink tubing and a hairdryer, a small blunt punch/hammer, 3m super trim adhesive, and about 8 small spring clamps. You probably have half of these items already, and can purchase the others for a few dollars.

What did you feel was the trickiest/hardest part of the install?

I would have to say that nothing was really extra hard, it was just tedious and time consuming. I would guess that maybe reinstalling the rear bow weatherstripping was the most frustrating, but just took perseverence.

Any other tips or tricks?

Yes, you will have to re-use the aluminum molded plates off of your old top if you don't want to buy new one. As long as you are careful there is no reason you cannot reuse your old ones by removing them and using the 3M adhesive to reapply to the new top. Also, I did not remove the side slide clamping rail that you will see in the install instructions if you buy the top from Cabrio world. I performed the tasks on this piece without removing it, but others may not. I just did not have new plastic plugs to re-install them if I would have broke on while removing the rail. Maybe someone else would go ahead and order these plastic pieces and just replace them. They cannot cost too much.

There was a guy on this board that installed his own top a little while back, and he recommended against doing it yourself mainly because he couldn't get it tight enough, so it was always flapping.

I do not know what kind of top he put on. That may be the case. With the one that I installed the only way that I see I could have messed it up was to not get the rear section centered and it to be lop-sided. The entire setup is precut with specific places the top conects with holes drilled in the fabric so you know where to put the aluminum plates for alignment. If these holes were not pre-drilled then it would have been very hard to know how tight it needs to be. I used the holes they provided and it was a perfect fit. However, I do not want to encourage someone to do it themselves and then be upset with me because they screwed it up. I am just saying that given my limited experience with tops I was able to succesfully install the top with absolutely no flapping. It is as tight as the factory top.

Originally Posted by larez2

Thanks for the pictures, and thanks for the cabrio world info - that is a great price!

Hey a few questions:
Did you need any special tools to install the top?

What did you feel was the trickiest/hardest part of the install?

Any other tips or tricks?

There was a guy on this board that installed his own top a little while back, and he recommended against doing it yourself mainly because he couldn't get it tight enough, so it was always flapping.

Thanks,
Larez2