The 1970 Electra 225 that I'm looking at, used to have a vinyl roof but the guy that owns it, took it off for some reason. I'm contemplating whether I should paint over it, or get new vinyl to put on it again. Has anybody ever painted over the top of a car that used to have a vinyl top? And if yes, does it look differently than it would with a vinyl top?
Do you mean paint with a different color? Personally(this is just what I like and what I'd do) what i'd do is replace the vinyl, but when I remove the old vinyl check the entire roof everwhere edge to edge and end to end for anything bad. Ask "70buick455" (David) about what he did to his Skylark in THIS thread. Goodluck and remember its your car do what YOU want! :TU:
Here's what I mean. Since the vinyl is already off the roof, I'm not sure whether to paint it(it doesn't matter what color) or to put another vinyl top on it. Here are some pictures of the roof.....
Appearance wise, it's up to what you prefer. If you decide to revinyl the car, then the finish of the repairs can be less than perfect, as the top will cover moderate imperfections as large as the factory solder joints, for example. That does NOT mean that the rust can be slighted and half-ass repaired. It will come back in amazingly short order if it is not totally eliminated. The top will just serve as an incubator for any left over corrosion to come roaring back in a year or so, potentially worse than what you have now. I am in a similar situation with an old Lincoln that I am playing with, only worse. It's a 78 Mark V two door with the half vinyl top. The car is basically rust free, except that the areas under the little opera windows on both quarters are ROTTEN and look like Swiss cheese. My plan is to either locate used rust free quarters--slim chance--, or more likely, have a shop cut out the rust and fab up patches for the bad areas. I plan on eliminating the vinyl, removing the rivets, and filling the holes for the trim on this car. I will paint the entire car a single color without the vinyl top or without two toning the area it used to reside in. I have also seen urethane truck bed coatings used as surface treatments in different colors. This is intriguing, in that one could repair the rusted areas, smooth the imperfections, prime it up, and then spray this textured, urethane coating in place of the vinyl top. Most shops can mix this stuff in colors, and it can be sprayed with different textures and thicknesses. I think that the look and feel of the original top could be duplicated with this process, and it would make for a durable, rust preventing treatment versus the original vinyl. Good luck, either way. Rudy E
I'm going to be doing the same thing to my '69 Riviera. The top rotted away so I plan on fixing up the roof good enough to paint. One spot that looks particularly bad is what I think is the solder joint in the rear of the roof. It looks like it was filled with some sort of plastic filler, and is now chipping away. Is this standard procedure? My dad baught the car in 1970-71 so I'm pretty sure that it's original.
The urethane bed coatings applied by the shops around here remain somewhat pliable, but not soft or mushy. You'd never build up enough to duplicate a thickly padded roof, but you could easily do a nice coating thick enough to approximate a non padded vinyl roof. Colors are generally available, but the question of color retention over a period of time comes to mind, as this is a high uv area on any car. I still think that this stuff could be applied over a repaired roof and produce a look that would fool plenty of folks at first glance. And, no, the factory solder joints on vinyl cars are ususally not completely finished. On my old Mark V, only the very front part of the joint is filled and finished, as the rest was under the roof, and not worth messing with, I suppose. Interestingly, the old Lincoln filler appears to be plastic, but the solder joints on my GN were leaded. Go figure. Thanks, Rudy E
My 70 used to have a vinyl top Left it off when it was sanded down and repainted by previous owner. Back window trim needed shorter tabs inserted to put back. That took me forever to figure out. :laugh:
