Wow, that was aggravating (Miata top)

Yep, this is a job i'll pay for.

docwyte wrote: I'd much rather pay someone $250 rather than spend two full days of my own time installing a soft top...

Local Mazda shops are over $1000 to do this job. lus they want well over $1000 for a Mazda top. Worth figuring it out yoourself or finding someone like me who does stuff in his garage.

This is a half day job for anyone who has done one before and assuming you did not buy e-bay top. I would insist on a Robbins top with rain-rail and new cables so as to avoid surprises.

I paid a professional $400 to do mine and it took him about 4-5 hours. I popped in a few times to see how he was doing and the job looked like a nightmare.

If and when this top gets too ratty, I'm going to use it as an excuse to gut the car and run a hardtop/no top.

Keith wrote: If only someone would write a book with how to install a Miata top...oh, wait! I've only installed Robbins tops, and they went on nicely. Very easy.

So which one of your miata books is this in? I'm guessing Find It, Fix It, Trick It.

Mazda Miata Performance Projects - that was the only one in print at the time of the post!

It's not really that hard. Seriously. I did my first one in a few hours, solo.

Three hours in and about half way done. So far so good.

I helped a friend change one on his 95 miata. It was the first time either of us had done a top, and we knocked it out in about 4 hours start to finish. It was surprisingly easy for us. That same friend came over to help me with the top on my S2000.............. took us nearly 12 hours to do that one.

curtis wrote: Yeah when i put mine in i was sweating like a whore in church

I'd have expected that to be just about the last place for that to happen...

My top replacement took about 30 minutes. Of course, there was no roll bar, and I was swapping the entire assembly, frame included, in from an NB.

Now that the newest NB is seven years old, I don't know where I'm going to score my next almost-new junkyard find...

Done, just under 5 hours total. It didn't turn out too bad either.

I probably could have done it faster by myself, but it was the BIL's new to him car so I let him "help".

He's never worked on a car in his life other than gas and go. He learned a lot today. We changed the top, replaced the radiator hoses, changed a bad fitting on the A/C and vacuumed and charged it, changed the oil, and since he had never even washed or waxed a car, we did that too. Or to say it better, he did a lot of it with help from me.

He's 19, by that age my eldest had already changed an engine. It was a good day and he's grinning like a Cheshire cat right now. His last project for the day was to run to Sears to get a tool set so he can take care of the maintenance himself. If I can get him to an autocross I might have just saved a soul.

After the wash and wax.

Not bad for a $1800 Miata.

SVreX said: -Go ahead and buy the new rain rail. You'll need it. I know, they want more for that dumb piece of plastic than you paid for the cheap top you bought off E-bay, but buy one anyway. Don't be a cheapa$$ like me. -Buy the new cables as well. Yours are broken.

Especially this...

Two days? Wow... I did one in an afternoon but I had experienced peeps helping me... (Ok... I helped them... )

And for all the web-drama of the rain rail, that was one of the easy parts.

The drilling and riveting of the frame was easier and faster with it off the car.