When you remove a vinyl top from a factory car the top (from what I have seen first hand) IS painted the factory color. To remove the top, simple, grab it somewhere and pull! It will usually come off in one piece unless it is really toast! Believe it or not even ones that pretty rough still manage to stay together and come off in one piece generally speaking. Once the is off, you will spend quite a bit of time using solvent trying to remove whats left behind.

Sometimes, believe it or not, you can actually clean to top up amazingly nice once all the backing is removed etc. Now if there is nothing but rust under the vinyl top then that is another story. But I have seen cars from down south when the top is removed where the original roof/paint looks pretty darn decent!

I'll have to dig through all my pics and find them from when we removed the vinyl top off our bird when we went from red to silver and when we installed the new black top and also when we installed the top on the LeMans. I believe that is when I wrote the article so that was only about a year ago now. It was a VERY detailed article from step one all the way through with tons of prep. This is where you make or break the install. Good solid prep makes the difference between a NICE install and a so so install.

Not to brag, but I will say, we have had MANY compliments on the install on both, our old Bird and now our LeMans. When people find out that Tammy and I and Jeffrey did the install they can not believe we did it! Some of you have seen one or both of our cars in person. Again, not to brag, but I am quite fussy and that is actually the reason I ended up doing my own install because I have seen "professional" installations where the seams are not centered, wrinkles in the vinyl, not pulled 100% tight, pulled too tight (this is when the seams are wavy) and the list goes on and on and on.

Also, someone asked above, yes, the drip rail trim DOES go over the vinyl! I've seen MANY professional installs take the shortcut and not bother to do this and there are MANY reasons for this! I believe I covered that in my article. If not I will add it as I learned yet another lesson on my LeMans regarding this very topic! I'll see if I can post this tomorrow...