swtazn97

Had some time to work on my car today, so I did my own Convertable TSB I went a step further and upgraded the stock strikers to hardtop strikers and shinetsu greased up the weatherstrip on the doors, trunk, convrt top, and under the hood. My impression is that the convertable top clamps hold A LOT stronger, seals better, and less cabin noise. Rattling is gone too

I did the cabin air filter too, since the service manual says to change it at 30k mi. The air smells fresh and so clean clean now. Pretty straight forward and easy job to do.

Here are some pics.

Shinetsu Grease


Trunk



Cabin Airfilter


Stock Strikers

Asura

What is the difference between the strikers?

Ink01

I would also like to know what the major differences are between the stock strikers and the Hard Top ones? Mine Top gets pretty noisy once I start getting above 85 mph.

swtazn97

I got a lil carried away installing the h/t strikers so i didn't take a picture of it.

I think aznpimp has some for sale on his FS: thread, because they look a lot like this: I hope he doesn't mind


I came across using the h/t strikers b/c i was looking at hardtopguy's website. It says that it helps the rattling noise in the description.

Ultimatly, the ht strikers gives the soft top clamps gives a better and stronger seal which you can feel when putting the top up and down.

The shintesu grease conditions all the weather stripping if it's dry.

The white lithium spray and all that stuff w/ the tsb says to do, pretty much eliminates the "crackling" noise from the soft-top joints.

I thought it was a worth mod to do considering I have ricks gears and a s/c'er. Less wind noise and the rattling is gone. I'm happy. My car is an 02. I'm pretty anal w/ my car so that's why I took it a step further to get less cabin noise.

I hope this helps,

Philip D.

jguerdat

I was surprised that the hardtop strikers were part of the package when Hardtopguy installed mine. The difference is small so I think you'd have to measure them to determine what's different (slightly tighter tolerances?)...

swtazn97

w/ the stock strikers, it was realy easy to unhook/hook the clamps on. but w/ the h/t strikers, it's really stiff.

Asura

True, but the stock strikers can also be adjusted forward for a tighter fit. I have a pair of HT strikers that came with my hard-top. I have not installed them as I thought there was no visible difference. Along with the fact that the install was rushed and once th top was on, I never looked at it again.

spider

2002 and later cars come with hardtop strikers already installed. The strikers are included when you order a hardtop for '00 or '01 cars which have smaller strikers.

swtazn97

are you sure..cuz my stock strikers and the "h/t strikers" i bought from htguy loooks different.

yogi

From what I've seen, the strikers look exactly the same. The only difference is the material that is used to make them. The problem with the old stock strikers was that the metal was too soft and wore out where the hook made contact with the striker. This would cause the top to get looser and looser. True, you could adjust the hook, but that didn't fix the problem. The new hardtop strikers don't (that I've heard yet) wear like the old ones, thus holding the top down tighter, etc.

Phil, I've never seen strikers that looked like yours. Even my stock '00 strikers had a piece of rubber in the middle. Dunno why yours are different.