"How To: Hardtop Spinlocks" Inserting and removing

[the baron]

 

 

Clever bit is highlighted in black below for those not wanting to read my drama lol

Bought a hardtop yesterday, after picking up the fixing kit from Porsche Swindon (£80) cheaper then eBay, once I had dropped the spinlocks in place i then used the plastic bag technique to locate the screws so as to not drop them into the body work and screwed them in, dead easy dont know what all the drama was about.

Picked up Hardtop and fitted it in a few mins then got back on motorway to head home

Bit of wind noise which I though odd, so stopped on the services and noticed that the passanger side rear on the hardtop was sticking up by about 5mm, upon further inspection I noticed the bolts that hold the splines in place that I had said was a 1min job were sitting proud, which explains the bang as the softtop went down.

Looking at a couple of youtube vids apparently there is a left and right spin lock, if put in the wrong way they will not sit properly and the bolts although screwd in tight will sit about 3-5mm proud and could potentioal break the arm of the softtop when operated.,(see the youtube video) so I was lucky.

Got to a friends at 8pm who helped me remove the hardtop, then came the drama of how the hell you remove the screws from the spin locks. (This is obviously why people never sell the hardtops with the fixing kit)

So after lots of head scraching I came up with an idea I will share, unscrew the bolt about half way, then put double sided carpet tape (dont ask me why Ive got that in the car I have no idea) wrap it around the allen key with about an inch protruding.

Then locate the allen key back onto the bolt and get a screw driver and push the tape around the bold, then continue to unscrew, walah, the bolt comes out and stays on the end of the alen key. Job Done.

Swapped over the spin locks, and refitted the hardtop (all in the rain at this point so will have to remove hardtop again to dry out roof)

Hope this helps others as it could have been a disaster, worst case being a broken softop arm.