pan

Got my 64 a year ago with a new top, apparently from Carlisle. I seldom use the top but my concern is that if I get caught in the weather and need to have the top in place I really need two stronge guys to help me batten it down and the back never sits on the body/trunk.
Is there an adjustment that I can be made so that this becomes a one man/female operation?

Bill Irwin

If the top has been down for some time, it may have shrunk. On a hot sunny day, raise the top, latch to front and leave the back just lying in the holes.
The sun will help expand the top a little bit. Bill.

rongold

Yours sounds like mine. It sounds like whoever installed the top installed the 2 canvas straps alongside the rear window too short, keeping the rear bow too high. Like one of the above posters said, latch the front, and leave it in the sun for a while. Then unlatch the front, but leave the hooks connected, and try and push the pins into the latches in the rear. Then latch the front and let those canvas straps stretch. That's what I do after the summer, because once I put my top down, it stays down all summer.

wombvette

You cant leave them down. Every time I put the car up for the year or the night, I put the top up and latch it. The top will stay fitted and last for a long time.

vt65

rongold

I don't leave it down for the whole year, only for the whole summer--I put it up at the end of October when I put it to sleep for the winter. The top was installed in 1989, and it's still going strong.

Pilot Dan

That is exactly right! Installed my Al Knock's top in 1991 and it is still perfect doing it this way. Pilot Dan

vt65

one of our car club members left his down on his '59 all summer, in the fall on a run we got caught in the rain, he tried putting the top up and broke both tabs off his windshield frame it was so tight!

Frankie the Fink

Get a Stayfast Haartz top....looks luxurious, wears like iron and doesn't shrink....even here in the deep South where we leave them down for months.

vt65

yes it's on my list, albeit a ways down.... paint has to come 1st, it's 24 years old...