Question about pausing the hard top open/close process

[KWhale]

Hi;

I wanted to clean and condition all the rubber seals on my XLR before putting her to bed for the winter. It seems to me (and please correct me if I'm wrong), the easiest way to get to all the seals would be when the top is partially opened. Sort of open it part way and stop. In various states of partial open, all the rubber is pretty much accessible to clean and condition.

My question is....does leaving the hard top in various states of partial open put undue stress on joints and such, or is it fine to do this for cleaning? So far I have never stopped the open/close process midway for fear of the weight of the roof and glass being too much for the various joints and do-dahs (that's a technical Canadian term)

 

[Fireduck69]

I've done it a few times for just what you want to do. No issue with the top, but be careful as the top will not be locked in a position and will tend to slowly fall to the lowest position. Which is usually where your arm is trying to reach at that moment.

 

[KWhale]

Thanks Fireduck!
Good to know about the top maybe not staying in place when partially open. So, when you open it part way, do you need to finish the complete open cycle before closing it again, or can you just go from half way open back to close?

Sorry if these are inane questions, but the car is new to me and I fear that stupidity on my part may end up causing some costly repairs

 

[Fireduck69]

No, you can go back and forth. You will also be able to kind of push the top back and forth but most on here will say that doing that could lead to problems with the pump or seals.

 

[Stella]

Thanks Fireduck!
Good to know about the top maybe not staying in place when partially open. So, when you open it part way, do you need to finish the complete open cycle before closing it again, or can you just go from half way open back to close?

Sorry if these are inane questions, but the car is new to me and I fear that stupidity on my part may end up causing some costly repairs

You can open the top part way. The manual does state to finish the cycle in the direction you were previously going. Now does it mess it up? You would be redirecting all the linkage and it is hydraulic so their is some torque involved I would finish the cycle unless it starts pouring out.

 

[XLRATING]

Some of the factory folks at BG told us to ALWAYS finish the cycle. I trust them.

So if you stop it on the way up, finish putting it up & vice versa.

 

[KWhale]

Wow...what a great forum! Thanks to everyone who chipped in, I'm ready to do those seals now!

 

[Phil105]

I JUST COULDN'T RESIST!!!

Wow...what a great forum! Thanks to everyone who chipped in, I'm ready to do those seals now![/QUOTE]

So a penguin is driving his car in the desert. All of sudden his car breaks down. Luckily, he's pretty close to gas station. So he waddles behind his car and pushes it to the gas station. He asks the mechanic to take a look and find the problem. Mechanic tells him to come back in 30 minutes. So the penguin is getting hot being in the desert and all, and decides to find something to cool him off. He goes in the convenience store and buys some vanilla ice cream. He eats the ice cream and makes a big mess on his face. Finally he goes back to the mechanic to find out the problem. Mechanic says," Looks like you blew a seal." To which the penguin replies, "No, no. It's just a little ice cream."

 

[lextoy]

just a note about the seals, after much research, i found that this stuff was highly recommended for convertible seals.
gummi pflege stift
and the best part, it comes in a shoe polish type dispenser that REALLY helps when applying to the gaskets/seals.
i washed mine first with warm soapy water, flushed and wiped all the nooks and crannies,
be careful not to tear any of the rubber, some of it is quite large and hollow and squishy,
great for getting down inside to clean, but do it carefully.
then let dry and used the gummi pflege stift stick. the applicator made it a breeze to apply and not make a mess.
it revitalized the trim pieces above both doors, and didnt leave a wet shine once dry.
just a deep new like lustre. lasted a long time too. and didnt wash off to badly.
a bit tends to run down the window glass from the door seals, but anything you use will leave streaks there.
streaks on glass were hard to clean off, which implies to me the stuff bonds to the seals even better

 

[XLRATING]

Propping up roof?

Not my finest moment today - after putting the XLR-V's roof partway up a while back to treat the rubber, I had no problems with it dropping at all. No such luck with my base. Did the same thing today & within 60 seconds while I was fiddling getting my stuff together, the roof flattened back down into the trunk mad: insert your choice of profanities here). I pushed the button to put it partly back up, all seemed fine (whew!) & decided I'd put it farther forward & work really fast. Again, within about 60 seconds it started dropping, and I realized this direction (forward) was worse than going into the trunk. So I tried to hold it up, open the door, get in while holding the roof up with one hand, and finish the close cycle - which I'm sure would have been amusing to watch. It wouldn't finish the close cycle as the roof was too far forward, plus I couldn't keep holding the roof up, so I ran the open cycle (which went ok). I'm wondering if things went south because it was cool outside when I did the V, but really hot out when I did the base, plus I'd just come back from a long drive.

My point is for others to learn from my mistakes, AND to ask if anyone has found a relatively safe way to keep the roof up?