I peeled the vinyl top on my 68 coipe today and my roof is toast, it needs a skin...unfortunately no one makes a replacement skin for a coupe so I guess I will have to find a donor car. I would love to see some pics of this if any of you guys have did this on your car...Thanks in advance
Ryan
I did it on my ´67. I used a ´68 donor car. Drill out all the spot welds and use an air chisle to break the top loose. I used panel adhesive around the left and right windows. I´ll see if i can round up some pics and get them scanned next week. Good luck.
So nobody makes replacement roof panels for coupes at all?? I have a vinyl top on mine and it scares me a little.. I know there is no rust anywhere on the underside, inside the qtrs or doors, but I know those tops used to cause rust issues..
I wish someone did my 69 Coupe needs a skin as it looks like at some time in its past possibly the hood flew open or at least by the dents all across the top of the roof just over the windsheld, & it has the usual dents at the top of the sail panel on both sides. I might just put the vinyl top back on .
No one makes the skin for the coupes unfortunately...i dont really want to put the vinyl top back on but i may have to...body man says he doesnt wanr to cut the roof off, says its too big of a job...
Sounds about right... Haha...i think I might just try to do the body work myself. My dad is a certified welder and we have a mig, if we do the metal work and have a friend who is a painter help me with that stuff it should work out well but I get nervous about cutting my car up my self for some reason...
I did it on my 68 last year. I posted a want ad on Craigslist and found a guy a short drive that let me cut a clean top off of another coupe that was rusted out below the belt line. I used a grinding disk in my 4 1/2 inch grinder, using the edge to get down into the drip rail channel and completely grind through the skin, leaving the drip rail in place. I drilled out the rest of the spot welds... lesson learned, buy a quality spot weld drill. The ones at Harbor Freight are only good for a few welds. On the donor, make sure you cut at the very bottom of the C pillar, the factory seam is just about two inches from the top of the fender. I turned it over and ground through the bottom of the drip rail and through the pinch welds in the window channel. I was left with a clean skin as it would have been before original installation. I was going to use the glue method originally, but decided to plug weld instead. Took quite a few weekends to do, but I'm very happy with the results.
I've done a few in a past life but they were all fresh skins.. One key thing to remember, as with any sheet metal, watch the amount of heat you are inducing.. You do not want to end up with a wavey panel when it's done..
If you have to separate the donor skin I'd say $100 is fair.
Me? I'd have him whack the A-pillars a couple inches up from the cowl and then cut through the sail panels at the bottom. You can clean them up later.... Prep the sail panels by making a diagonal cut so it will blend better (and be stronger) and cut back the inside structure a couple inches above along the same line. This will make it easier to weld. Cut your existing roof to match and replace the entire thing in one shot. Should be much easier than deskinning and reskinning I would think.
Well it was a bust on the roof i went after, they guy had two 67's but one had a sunroof and the other would have taken a couple hours of cutting trees just to get to, so I think I have another one lined up that I am going to go look at next week...in the mean time I found this video on youtube, this should be the same for a mustang right?
Here are a few pics from when I did mine. They aren't that great, but it can be done! I wish I would have taken more. I could push my thumb right through the roof. I paid 100 for the skin and a few other parts I got with it.
Thanks for the pics... I've got the lead removed and spot welds cut the the drivers side c pillar and the spot welds cut out of the rear window on the drivers side. I also have the skin separated from the drip rail... I have a few pics I will be posting later. When you removed the lead body filler did you grind it out or melt it out? I grinded min out and it didn't seem to be a real efficient way, but I heard that melting it out could warp the panels...
Looks good. I melted mine out with a torch. Didn't warp because the the metal is curved right there, but it is definitely something to be careful about. Were you able to find a donor?
I ground out the drivers side rear, but then I torched the other seams. I did find a donor but haven't looked at it yet. The guy is going to cut it off for me and he is a mustang guy who restores, so it should be a good one. He wants $150 for it...
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