5/5
Installation Time: Afternoon
November 06, 2018
Beautiful touch for your convertible...
After having drooled over the pics of this bar on others cars, I finally got around to installing one on mine. I love the look. I have some tips for installation though:
1) Follow the instructions to the "T", and read through them and understand them prior to starting. These instruction are actually very good and thorough. Note, that the "long reach hex key" will need a working length of at least 8 inches, most of us don't have these lying around.
2) a couple of the socket sizes mentioned in the guide weren't correct for my car but this is not a big deal, just use what fits.
3) Step 14: Be very careful not to drop the nuts!!! I did and had to go to the hardware and get some new ones. They go plink, plionk, and are GONE! Probably never to be seen again.
4) Step 16: my window trim fastener was 7mm, not 10mm.
5) Step 18: when installing the brackets, be sure not to use the bolt intended for thread cutting as the are the same size bolt and thread. Also, I used masking tape to help hold the nuts in place for installing the brackets. Otherwise these would have joined the nuts lost above!
Try to align the large holes in the brackets with the ones in the body otherwise it will be impossible to reinstall the rubber grommets, which I found difficult anyway!
6) Step 19: Keep the ground wire completely loose and do not zip tie to anything yet (they say this in step 20 but I had already zip tied it...dummy!)
7) Step 21: Be sure to pay attention to this because you want your top to work correctly after installation. I actually had to grind down one of the nuts to make it more like a jamb nut to achieve this spacing. You may find you will have to do some grinding to make this part work, do not grind on the plastic! You might want to go to a good hardware store and get a real jamb nut if they have such a thing in metric.
8) Step 23: Cut into the harness under the passenger side panel, not under the rear seat. Be careful cutting away the wrapping as many of these wires are quite small and easily damaged. The correct wire was just where they said it would be. The picture in the instructions is very accurate.I found the installation of the T-Tap to be a little tricky and I've done a bunch of these. I actually used a pocket knife to CAREFULLY scrape away a little of the insulation where the T-Tap connected. Then force the wire into the T-Tap prior to closing it. My concern was that just closing it will not pierce the wire insulation enough to make good contact. Pay attention to the "Hint" about the spade connector!!!
Once this was together, I tested to be sure that I had the right wire and all connections were solid. Then I re-wrapped the exposed wiring with electrical tape so that the bundle and the T-Tap was as secure as it was to start with.
Step 24: The bottom rear of the quarter trim panel has to "slide" into mating groves in the panel below it. If you don't watch out for this, it will not seat properly.
Step 27: This is where you will need the extra long 1/4" hex. As I said earlier it needs to have a working length of at least 8 inches to fit through the existing seat belt opening and reach the hex screw.
..hope this helps you not make some mistakes I made!
Year: 2015
Submodel: GT
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