hey everyone, i am painting my camaro this summer and i am just wondering about the t-tops. I'm just wondering how much of a hassle it will be to remove all the seals and stuff. Also will i be able to save the seals or will they most likely have to be replaced? The reason im painting the car is to to 1 keep it from rusting and 2 so it looks better then it does now because its half black primer with cracked paint and half original color so if this is going to be a major project i prolly wont do it, i will just wait a few more years when this isnt my daily driver anymore.

Thanks

 

You can paint the car without removing the ttop weatherstripping. Just do a good job of masking the area off. You cannot remove the factory weatherstripping without damaging it. If ot has been replaced before, then that could make it harder to remove and possibly even harder to mask off. Depends how much adhesive was used.

 

Ok thats what i wanted to know thanks

 

I've been thinking about this some more and i have decided that i should just do it right the first time so how much will it be for seals and how difficult is it to reseal the t-tops and have no leaks.

 

I left the seals on my car when we painted it and it turned out fine. Are you keeping the factory color? If so there shouldn't be any issues. I'd reconsider if you are color changing just because there is potential for the new paint to not get great coverage around the masked seals.

 

I managed to remove the t-top center piece and weather stripping from a wrecked car with just a small tearing of the seal (easily repairable). Now if getting my heavily rusted t-top center piece were only so easy. One screw came out. None of the others will budge even with liberal use of PB Blaster and by impact driver with the Phillips tip. I ran out of patience and curse words. It looks as if I'll have to grind off the screw heads and drill out the remains of the old screws.

Lon

 

ok and when i put it back together i know to put some kind of sealer between the t-top seals and the body but is there any where else?