monterey

Thanks Peter.

I removed the retaining strip yesterday and peeled the top free from the double sided tape. That loosened it enough to engage the latch. I let it sit in the sun today with the leading edge sitting free. After work today I opened the top and reattached the leading edge and retaining strip. I was able to close the top after that was completed. It is supposed to be warm here for the next week so I will take your advice and drive around with the top closed to let it stretch.

It sure is nice to be able to see out the rear window again. Never realized how dirty that plastic window really was.

Tony

I have installed many of these tops in New Jersey. You need a helper to close top. Keep it closed for at least a week. Eventually it will stretch. Oem tops on all German tops are very tight. This is due to their driving excessive speeds on the Autobahn and avoiding flopping of top.

Hello there,

I just finished installation a GAHH replacement top for my 97 Boxster with a glass window. All went reasonably smoothly, thanks to the links from Mike Focke's page, until I went to close it. It is extremely tight. In fact, even using the two finer plates on the roof frame I cannot pull the top forward far enough to engage the catch. I have searched through the various articles on Renntech looking for similar questions and have not been able to find any. All of the posters that have made a similar replacement seemed to be able to close the top allow it too stretch into shape.

GAHH now ships their top with an elastic strap to help guide the tension rope in the channel on the roof frame. I had originally routed this strap under the control arm (986 561 039 00) in order to ensure that the guide rope stayed in the channel. That appeared to put a lot of tension on the elastic strap which I thought might have been keeping the top from moving forward, so I went back and simply ran the strap directly to where the original belt meets the main folding top bow. That reduced the tension, while still routing the tension rope in the correct channel. I was hoping that the reduced tension would allow the roof to move forward enough to close. It did not.

I then released the top from the rear bow to see if there was too much tension on the front end. The top closed easily with the rear portion released.

I then went back on put the back of the top in the channel and inserted the top and the seal into the upper groove of the tension bow and tried again. Still now luck. So I pulled the seal out of the groove and reset it with the canvas pulled as far out of the seal as possible. GAHH has sewn a rubber strip along the fabric that goes into the upper groove that I assume is there to provide extra purchase and increase the hold at that area. Even with the additional few milimeters that I gained, the top still will not come forward enough.

I am pretty certain that the front portion is in the right position as the side holes lined up with the aluminum plates and attachment points. I have not tried to loosen the front where the canvas wraps over the roof frame and is secured by the retaining strip. I figure that if I loosen the material here it will create wrinkles in the top and will flap at speed when the top is up.

If anyone has any suggestions, or knows of a previous post in this forum I would appreciate the help.

Tony

Cristoph,

I have just finished installing the glass window GAHH top on my 97 Boxster. Like you the top does not close all of the way. My gap must be a little over two inches as I cannot apply enough pressure to get the latch to engage. Do you remember how much on the first flap you put in the first groove in the rearmost bow? I inserted the flap to the point where the stiching was fully inside the groove. If I take the fabric out of that rearmost bow the top will close fully, so I am confident that the issue is at the back end. The canvas is very tight already and I am not sure how much play can be gained by reducing the depth of insertion at the back.

Thanks for any advice you have.

Tony

Hello,

here is an update of the latest status and some observations I want to share with the community:

1) The lower eye of the bowden cable (there were the cable will be attached to the lower B-pillar) is to small. The screw that is assembled at that position on my 2001 Boxster S has a diameter of 5.1mm. Whereas the eye just has a diameter of 4.9mm.

It took me just some minutes to widen it by a Dremel tool. But if somebody wants to buy a GAHH top, you might ask them if they changed this glitch. I already wrote them a mail regarding this.

Also the length of the outer cover of the bowden-cable was to long at that position. I was not able to align the hole of the eye with the hole were the screw has to go in. So I removed about 1 cm of cable cover to give the eye more play. With that the assembly was no problem.

For me it looks as if they ship the top with the wrong eye, which causes both problems.

2) There is no hole in the canvas flap that will be attched to the lower B-pillar (described in 1) ). Punch a whole large enough before you install the top. Mine was very small ( I did not want to remove much material). So when I had the top on, it was very difficult to widen the hole up as the flap is in a very narrow place between al those bows. And it is anyhow a difficult location when you try to align the screw with the eye and the washer and the flap to the hole. Finding a dropped parts would be really difficult.

3) When you put the fat weather strip in the rearmost bow (#16 at Mike Fockes description) it helped me a lot to unclip those big black plastic covers that protect the hinges

4) Aligning the holes of the canvas with the holes of the aluminum plates: Due to the double side tape I wanted the first attempt of alignment being the final one. So I used long, thick toothpicks to align all holes one after another. It worked out pretty good.

5)The 4 Philips screws (#3 at Mike Focke) have a different length. The third screw from the front was shorter.

6) At the front end of the top there was a cardboard strip sewn in at the old top. The GAHH has nothing there. There was just a loose cardbord strip send with the top. I assume GAHH send this so you can kind of "fill" the metal ridge of the foremost bow. I did not use the cardboard because I could not see any help in it. Instead I used my automotive foam double side tape to fill the ridge and glue the canvas to underneath the front frame . So far it looks as if it is working pretty well.

Today I could finish my car. After everything was assembled I closed the top. Because of the new canvas it stayed about 2 inch open. So I had to pull it until the hook could engage. Now I will let it sit for two days to stretch before I try to open it for the first time completely. Maurice, do you think this time is sufficient?

I will keep you updated.

Overall I have a very good impression of the quality of the GAHH top. I mainly choosed it over the Robbins because they are longer in the market. And so the might have more time and feedback to improve their product (delaminating glass...)

Overall it took me about 4-5 hours of disassembly and about 14 hours to assemble it back together. The most time consuming part was to put in back the screw at the back lower side of the clamp rail. Both sides took me about 2 hours together. Also putting in all the weather strips into the rear end took quite some time.

The car is really looking good with the new top. So far, there is only one small wrinkle which does not bother me at all. The whole thing cost me about a weekend of time but was definitely worth the fun.

Maurice, thank you very much for all your advice you gave me. Without you advice and the Homepage of Mike Focke I would have definitely not been able to change the top myself. It is great to have guys like you out there! Thank you!

@986fan: As mentioned, my overall impression of the GAHH is pretty good. The small eye can be fixed as can the bowden cable cover. The cardboard not sewn to the front of the canvas was no big problem for me at the moment as I did not use it ( I hope it will stay this in the future). I do not know if the Robbins tops come in the same condition or they do not have those glitches. I do not know anything about the BAS top. For me the most important point was that I did not hear about a GAHH with delaminating glass after they did their improvements.

Whenever you have some questions were I can help you, please let me know.

Christoph

Peter,

I received my glass window top from GAHH a couple of weeks ago for my 97 Boxster and have completed the installation. All looks good except it is extremely tight front to back and I cannot pull the front forward far enough to engage the locking handle. Have you had similar issues? If I detach the bottom of the top along the bow the top closes fine. I am not sure if there is too much material set inside that bottom bow when I insert the seal that holds the fabric in place.

Thanks for any insight you can provide.

Tony

I have installed many GAHH tops. Glass and plastic. Have had no issues with them. 973-635-3443