Ok so here are the pictures of some more progress...

So these are really all the tools that you will need to de-skin the glasstop...Some chisels, blades to clean off the glass gunk and center punches for the Blair Spot well bit...

You have to start by removing all the gunk left from the glass or else you will have hard time finding the spot welds!

Once you found your welds and Center punched each one, you can then go to town with the spot weld remover! I love this Bit!! I will make your life so much easier!!

Once you have them all drilled out on the front you can take you chisel and start separating the top skin from the rest of the roof!

Once you somewhat get the front started, start separating the sides with the chisel from the inside!

Go all the way around...

Once I had that all lose I started drilling out the spot welds in the rear and that's when I got a little to anxious with the drill and broke the main bit!

So no more spot drilling for me today!

 

Ok so here are the final pictures from today! I actually got a lot done today! I don't think I have 8 hours into this as well! I take brakes here and there, I take pictures I stop and play with my dog! So If I really wanted to, and had not broken my bit I think I could have had the skin off the roof in one full 8 hour day!

I am very confident I will have the skin off tomorrow!! If that is the case I might be starting on actually stripping the car apart tomorrow so I can prep it for the cut, and install of the top itself!!

:classic:

So here are the final pictures from today! As you can see if it not for the rear the skin is practically off!!

Make sure you stay tuned and don't miss out on any of the fun!!! :burnout:

 

Alright so Leo came over this morning to give me a ride to pick up a new drill bit which I did...once we got home we started working on the roof again and we were able to get the rear spot welds removed, and next thing I knew I had the top skin off the old top!

I gave Leo the honors of separating the skin from the roof! :lolslap:

What you are left with!

Lets mock it up on the car!!

Ohhh yeah it's going to look SEXY!!!

That's it for right now! It's getting really cloudy and it looks like rain is coming so I think I am done for the day!

Oh One more thing for all of you who want to know! There are 105 Spot welds that you have to drill out to get the top skin off!!!

 

So I started removing the interior and I figured why not just pull everything so I can "restore" all the panels since some of them are a little scratched and faded. Took off the rear hatch as well! So now she is officially ready for the big cut! Hahaha If you are wondering what I am talking about here it is...

I will not be drilling out the spot welds on the current roof of the car! We are going to cut around the inside of the top roof...and will be doing whats known as a Layered install! I know it doesn't make any sense right now but it will!

So I am just waiting on Carlos so we can make the proper cuts! Still waiting for that call homie!

 

Ok so today was a pretty productive day...the big cut was made today! But anyway, I know a lot of you are curious as to how the install is going to go! If you want more info on what a layered install is just take a look at this PDF, it's got some quick info!

http://www.lordfulfillment.com/upload/RP3003.pdf

So anyway I started working on the roof, and I have to trim the front lip off of it...

Reason being is because it's got to slide in here...

So I finally got my hands on a angle grinder with a cutting wheel, and went to town on the car! My friend Jose and I had the top off pretty quick!

And here is the typical "I just cut the roof off of my car and I am standing in the middle" picutre!

So tomorrow I will be cutting and grinding some more so that we can get the top to fit as perfect as possible...So Stay Tuned!!!

 

So some more progress has been made this morning! So as you know yesterday we cut the roof, well this morning it's been all about fitment! You have to cut the top of the rear brace off because it sits to high for the glasstop!

Once you do that you have to go around and start grinding, and trimming down metal on both the glasstop and whats left of your top so everything can fit nice and snug!

Here is a shot of the front of the glasstop overlapping the front of the old roof! Once it gets clamp down and sealed into place you won't even be able to tell, I believe the roof will rise an unnoticeable 1/32" of an inch.

So I figured I would start from the front and work my way back as far as fitment went but I quickly found that it was much harder that way, so I moved my attention to the sides, and the rear figuring that everything would fall into place once I had that settled in.

And sure enough it pretty much did...the front will fall right into place with a little massage!

We are getting closer and closer to final results!!

Remember if you guys have any questions please feel free to ask!!! I will try to answer them to the best of my knowledge!!

 

Ok so I have continued with the fitment process and I am getting closer and closer to getting everything to line up correctly!

You can see here how everything is leveling out nicely!

The only thing that is off right now is the rear but not by much!

One thing that I am doing is flattening everything down with a flat chisel I've gone all the way around...

I've used the clamps to position the top and I make my adjustments from there!

So anyway I've been working on the front piece this afternoon...and I think I am going to remove the windshield strip (I might have to replace it anyway) because it's a little hard to fold it down and work it out of the way! But I've got it going a bit!

You can see it start to settle down...

The middle part is the one that I am having a little trouble with, but I think I know how to fix it, which is what I am going to do as soon as I get this update done

Pretty much the key to getting everything to fit nice and snug is to carefully grind down what needs to be ground down, and to use a nice flat head chisel...:thumbup: Take your time. step back and try to think ahead don't forget about the next steps.

 

Alright so here are the last shots of the day! I'm beat! :smash: But I finally got it all done!! Everything is where it needs to be!

As you can see, I am def going to need a new weather strip because this one got a little tore up! These things are real easy to mess up! :bonkers:

What I like is that I was able to get the whole roof to sit nice and low without the use of clamps! The way you see it right now on the pictures is how it sits without any bracing or anything to hold it down! So I am pretty sure that once I put the clamps on it will sit a bit lower as well! :thumbup:

And a top view of my masterpiece!!! :classic:

Tomorrow I remove everything and start prep for the adhesive! I will be prepping all the surfaces by grinding everything down, and fixing the little rust spot on the front windshield! :thumbup:

 

So I got up early this morning to start working on the car...I took your advice and removed the windshield weather strip as I will go ahead and order a new one from the dealer! :thumbup: Once I had the weather strip removed I figured I would start prepping all the metal for the adhesive...

This is the one area of rust that I had, but I am no Auto Body expert so all I know about fixing rust is grinding it down...so if you guys have any 411 let me know what are the appropriate steps that follow!

Once I got done grinding down the front roof, the little side gutters, and the rear brace I decided to slap on the glasstop so I could adjust it more now that I had the weather strip off and man has that made a difference! :thumbup:

Stay Tuned!

 

So anyway, as the day went on the metal prepping continued...I started noticing that I did not like something...see I had to cut the top off of the rear brace because it was to high making the rear of the glasstop sit up really high to the point were it was not looking right...so that's why we cut and trimmed it! But the fact that I cut the brace was bugging me so after talking to a few people they led me in another direction!

So what I ended up doing was cutting the rear brace of the old glasstop frame...

After you do that you have to cut and grind down a few spots to get it to fit just right!

So after that I placed the glasstop frame on top to see how it would sit and see if there would be any changes...pretty much I did it because I wanted to see what I was going to need to re-adjust!

And to my surprise it all sits fine! Nothing really changed! I just have to fix the rear a little as you can see in the picture!

The rear from the side...

So I am off to buy the Lord Fusor that I need...:thumbup: See you guys in a bit!

 

So I got a big step done today...we went ahead and placed the rear brace on permanently, I was finally able to find the Lord Fusor 108B that I needed to finish off the project yesterday! I bought 2 bottles of this stuff.

You will need an applicator gun for this, luckily for me Carlos still had his and is letting me borrow it for the project! I also picked up the big 18" clamps that he had! So I finally have everything that I need to complete this project! :thumbup:

So I got up this morning and finished prepping the metal surfaces by grinding everything down!

here are the rest of the stuff I needed...the big Clamps, Lord Fuser, and applicator gun...

So once I had the rear brace ready to go, and I did my final adjustments! I prepped the Lord Fuser...

The mixing tube doing it's thing!!

Once I laid down the fusor and we aligned everything it was time to start clamping!!

So now the rear brace is clamped up...the Fusor takes about 8 hours to completely cure...but I am going to play it safe and let that sucker sit for at least 48hours...so by Friday I should be placing the rest of the tops frame on the car! :thumbup:

So for now we are just going to let this bake in this hot ass SoCal weather we are having! :classic:

 

Oh Oh!!! :classic: Sneak Peek Time!

Ok so here are the pictures as I promised...I took these this afternoon...

So there you have it...I really wished my Camera had not taken a dump during the last part of the ordeal...now I feel my so called writeup is incomplete.

So anyway I now have absolutely no reason to not paint the car! In the past I had always held up on paint because deep down I always wanted the glasstop and I did not want to deal with the hassle of painting it and then doing the glasstop only to paint it again. I have now completed all my "BIG" projects for the CRX.

It's official now...PAINT WILL BE NEXT!!!! It's the last thing on my "BIG" things to do! So keep an eye out as I have a feeling that paint is not to far down the road now! :classic: Thanks to everyone who commented on my car!

Also one more big thing! If you have any questions or have more info on the Glasstop install please feel free to ask or post the information!!!:smash:

 

So at the end there my camera had messed up and I did not get a few shots of actual skin top being put in place. But you guys can get an idea of how it went. As I stated before, if anyone has any questions please feel free to ask.

I just wanted to move the thread here so that it is not lost in case JDMU goes away. I know it's old and I know a few people have done some other installs, but having information from other people with experience is always a nice thing.

 

Thanks for posting this here, was actually looking for it the other day..

Didn't your car end up getting stolen or something?

The link to your original thread on JDMU was already in the FAQ, but I added the link to the on-site write up too.

 

Thanks for the write up!!! The glass top is so baller! b

 

Cool! Just be sure not to be out when it hails !

 

Nicely done, great detailed wrietup with good pics!

The glasstop swap is very cool, but you need to have the time, patience, skills and cash to do it right!

 

My god. That is an insane install job. Looks good!

 

Cool! Just be sure not to be out when it hails !

Hahahaha hey Robb! Well luckily for me Hail was never an issue out in Los Angeles. Looking over the write up has brought back a lot of memories! It was a lot of fun doing it! I learned a lot. For those of you wondering...I never had a problem with any kind of leaks! The car always felt solid. It did not lose any rigidity whatsoever.

 

So when you removed the glass from its original top, is there a rubber seal around the glass?
How did you mate the glass on to the new top?

 

Nicely done, great detailed wrietup with good pics!

The glasstop swap is very cool, but you need to have the time, patience, skills and cash to do it right!

yeah hes got like hundreds of dollars in clamps alone lol he kept all the tags on them...bet they were returned lol

 

Awesome work! Like tuna asked, did the glass remove easily and did you have to find/order anew rubber seal.

Also it looks like all the bar-codes were left of the clamps. I have returned some tools after a one time use as well. Thanks for posting this, it will help a lot of people I think

 

Wow nice work man! Thanks for reviving this and making the pictures visible once again.

 

There's no rubber seal on the roof glass, just the surrounding trim. It installs the same way as the quarter windows or windshield - use a urethane adhesive like 3M Windo-Weld.

 

I'm curious if anyone here knows of a body shop that has done this install before with great results, preferably more than once.

I'm looking for glass tops now for my own conversion in the next year or so, and don't have the time or skills to do it myself. Would rather go to someone with experience and knows what they're doing and can give a real OEM fit.

Any place in the continental US that has done this?