Guest steveskyhawk Posted October 26, 2011 Share Posted October 26, 2011 My 91 convertible has snaps holding the headliner to the B pillar. I have 2 other convertibles that do not have these snaps and consequently the headliners are loose most of the time. If you own a convertible does your car have snaps or not? Is this something that was done to 1991 models only?If you are of the 400 point, grey valve stem only crowd this isn't a question about what somebody arbitrarily thought was original. This is simply a survey. These snaps may have been something that all the cars were supposed to get but was deleted by the bean counters along with the color keyed headliner and Bose premium radio. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NCReatta Posted October 26, 2011 Share Posted October 26, 2011 My '90 didn't have the snaps. My friend in our local BCA chapter has snaps on his '90 convertible, but they were added by the previous owner. I was on a tour this weekend with the Southeast Region or the BCA, and I assisted a member in putting down his top on his '91 Maui Blue/Blue convertible. No snaps.I think they were added by the owners None ever came from the factory that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest steveskyhawk Posted October 26, 2011 Share Posted October 26, 2011 Thanks Marck. That is what I suspected. Replacing the pile attached to the headliner requires the removal of the headliner which is more work than installing 4 snaps. I prefer the car to look nice then to have the headliner flopping all over in the interest of someone's irrelevant version of originality.I'm toying with the idea of having a color keyed headliner put in my grey convertible when I put the new top on. I'm trying to decide on snaps or Velcro. Does the Velcro seem to hold OK if it is in good condition? I have never seen it work properly. Anybody? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NCReatta Posted October 26, 2011 Share Posted October 26, 2011 When I had my top put on, my upholsterer was kind enough to put new Velcro on the top frame. It worked very well for a few months, but when the sun started to warm everything up, it seemed to loose some of its umph. I would go with snaps if it were my car. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barney Eaton Posted October 26, 2011 Share Posted October 26, 2011 The velcro works fine, it is the glue that holds the velcro to the metal "B" post that fails.Never saw a convertible that the velcro had come loose from the headliner flap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest steveskyhawk Posted October 26, 2011 Share Posted October 26, 2011 So we have glue, hook and pile. If any one of the three fail the result is a floppy headliner. On my cars the pile seems tired. The only problem with snaps is they may not let go if you forget to unfasten them prior to dropping the top. Somthing is going to get damaged Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest 68vwdubb Posted October 26, 2011 Share Posted October 26, 2011 Just to chip in, none of the 3 1990 convertibles that I have owned ever had snaps. Just velcro. I prefer to keep it stock/original, the way it was intended. The velcro has always worked fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bushwack Posted October 26, 2011 Share Posted October 26, 2011 Just to chip in, none of the 3 1990 convertibles that I have owned ever had snaps. Just velcro. I prefer to keep it stock/original, the way it was intended. The velcro has always worked fine.Might as well add my two cents.My current vert and the previous red vert had (have) velco. Don't like it. Snaps sound 'interesting'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest steveskyhawk Posted October 26, 2011 Share Posted October 26, 2011 So I guess I will have my new headliner made with Velcro. If new Velcro fails to hold snaps can be added later. I prefer to have the car appear as intended also but it wasn't intended that the headliner be loose. Reatta convertibles were intended to have color keyed headliners too until the bean counters disallowed it so I'm told. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NCReatta Posted October 26, 2011 Share Posted October 26, 2011 So we have glue, hook and pile. If any one of the three fail the result is a floppy headliner. On my cars the pile seems tired. The only problem with snaps is they may not let go if you forget to unfasten them prior to dropping the top. Somthing is going to get damagedSame here.. The pile just seems tired and doesn't hook to the hooks.. I asked the member of our chapter if the snaps posed a problem with letting the top down, and he said that even when he's forgotten, they unsnap before he breaks anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wws944 Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 My top is original and has velcro. No snaps anywhere.As to your ribbing about gray valve caps, some of us who are blessed/cursed with very low mileage Reattas know that originality is important to the value of the car. Sure if a part needs replacing, it may be useful to upgrade it in some way. But it needs to be done thoughtfully and carefully, or else risk turning a $20k car into a $5k car. We also really need to continue to document various aspects of how the car was built for the archives. When I joined this forum two years ago, I found the archives of this group to be extremely valuable. I only started threads on topics, like the tubing over the front braces, when the archives did not already contain the information. Would have never given the valve caps the slightest thought, except that it was documented here and in the Judging Manual. Now I know and can preserve them. For other cars that don't have their originals, no big deal. Except that if someone finds a bag full (or sees one on a spare tire in a wrecking yard), they know to grab them for those who want them.Some things aren't written in stone though. Here is an example that will cause some folks to smile, but may be interesting to others: I recently replaced my visor clips with some Kingsley versions. (Exact color match, and perfect fit, BTW.) When I unscrewed the sun visors to remove the trim strip, I noticed that the screws holding the left sun visor were a different length from the right sun visor. Obviously when my car was built, the worker on one side of the assembly line probably ran out of screws of the 'right' size, and so used different screws than the guy on the other side. Which length is "correct"? One could look at the parts diagram for one opinion. We could ask folks to measure the lengths of all their sun visor screws and see who had what. For my car, I need to keep them the way they were - and that is what I did. BTW, I have fixed several little Craft Centre problems and never bothered to mention it to the list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest steveskyhawk Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 (edited) 944 said:"My top is original and has velcro. No snaps anywhere.As to your ribbing about gray valve caps, some of us who are blessed/cursed with very low mileage Reattas know that originality is important to the value" The question is how do you know the top with no snaps is original? Secondly where is the documentation that indicates grey valve stem caps are original? The judgeing manual was written by who? Concern over this indicate the car may indeed be a curse. I'm sure 944 has a beautiful car however I dont believe it is more valuable because it has an ill fitting original vinyl top without snaps and grey valve stem caps. This is the myth I object to. Color of valve stem caps is irrelevant and always will be as far as i'm concerned.As far as the mix match hardware for the visor clips go I can assure you this is not unusual. You may be replacing them for the third time. Edited October 27, 2011 by steveskyhawk (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wws944 Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 (edited) ... The question is how do you know the top with no snaps is original?The top has not been replaced. Secondly where is the documentation that indicates grey valve stem caps are original?Original tires and original valve caps. The judgeing manual was written by who? Concern over this indicate the car may indeed be a curse. It was written by people who know these cars a lot better than I do. At least than I did two years ago. It has been a very valuable guide to me. I am very thankful to those who spent their time and expertise to put it together.I'm sure 944 has a beautiful car however I dont believe it is more valuable because it has an ill fitting original vinyl top without snaps and grey valve stem caps. This is the myth I object to. Color of valve stem caps is irrelevant and always will be as far as i'm concerned.As far as the mix match hardware for the visor clips go I can assure you this is not unusual. You may be replacing them for the third time.The top is fine, thank you. And the broken visor clips were the originals.I have no problems with people replacing broken originals with 'better'. It is their car, and they can do what they want with it. But factory original parts provide the benchmark, and 'better' often comes at quite a cost, whereas a lot of folks simply want 'cheaper'. Or unfortunately, with certain items, 'anything'. Edited October 27, 2011 by wws944 (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMJAnew Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 My top has 'add on / homemade' clips of sorts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest steveskyhawk Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 My top has 'add on / homemade' clips of sorts.Could we get a picture of those clips? They may be better than the snaps i've seen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NCReatta Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 Another solution for those who don't want snaps is this..When I had my convertible, and the flaps would come loose, I would bend the flap back like its supposed to be, but I would also put the bottom corner underneath the tab that would hold the Velcro onto the top frame. The tension was enough to keep it there until I decided to put the top down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest blue72beetle Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 Another solution for those who don't want snaps is this..When I had my convertible, and the flaps would come loose, I would bend the flap back like its supposed to be, but I would also put the bottom corner underneath the tab that would hold the Velcro onto the top frame. The tension was enough to keep it there until I decided to put the top down.That's what I did to mine. The velcro came off, and I haven't got around to a more permanent fix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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