So I found a good deal on craigslist for a 996 hardtop. I believe it is a 2002 hardtop, and my car is 2002. It fit perfect, and I'm enjoying the 'new' feel of my car. However the hardtop has a few scratches on it and is a slightly different color (black while my car is basalt black). All in all not a big deal, but I will probably at some point want to paint it. Has anyone re-painted a hardtop. How much disassembly is required. I imagine you could tape off the back window instead of removing it, and the window seals as well (especially when I'm going from black to metallic black). However there are a couple gaskets stripe pieces that look difficult to tape around. There look to be some clips holding them on from shop diagram? Has anyone removed them? Should I obtain some replacement clips (in my experience 15 yr old clips break). Are there 4 on each side? Is the gasket usually ok with removal? Anything else I should look out for doing this? Thanks Mike
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YOUR RESEARCHHardtop dissassembly for painting
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I had my hardtop repainted. When I had my car repainted, the body shop wanted an extra $3k to disassemble and repaint the hardtop. I took it to a local Maaco and they did it for $500. Now, truth be told, I wasn�t expecting much. It turned out better than I expected.
Awesome, does look good! So they taped off the back window and the right and left side window seals... I can't tell what they did with those two striped gaskets and strips? Just paint over the whole thing? Is it taped off with some sort of pin tape?? Thanks for your reply!!
They taped the gaskets. For the money, it came out great. I don�t think I would trust them to repaint my 996 but as far as color matching a hardtop, I�m happy.
Ok great. I think i'll need to take off the stripe pieces as there are some scratches on them. I looked at the service manual and they are clipped on by 8 clips (4 per side) 986.563.721.00. I found a picture of the clip. It looks like there is a screw hole for it?? The service manual doesn't show any screws however. Anyone ever taken these strips off?? Mike
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