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1970 Cutlass Supreme Convertible top frame restoration. I haven’t started this project yet, I’m still in the information gathering stage. I have a friend who can powder coat it for me for free. My questions are is it even possible or recommended to powder coat and has anybody else done this? Can it be done in one piece or can it be taken apart into smaller pieces? Are there any wear items that should be replaced? Any other restoration tips are appreciated.
I disassembled mine and painted it with rattle cans. Yes there are a few wear parts that can be replaced. There are also riveted pivot points that can’t be taken apart and might be problematic with powder coating. I had concerns with spray paint around those areas but it worked well.
You can see in the first two pictures that the main side rails have several riveted joints, as do the latch assemblies. I don't know if powder coat would interfere with those.
The rearmost side rails and the bows wouldn't be an issue.
You can see a lot of the pivot points in this before image.
I talked to my powder coat guy about doing my top frame; he didn't recommend powder coating and was concerned the coating thickness would cause binding or restrict the movement of the many pivot points and fulcrums in the top frame. His advise was to spray paint the frame as the paint thickness would be much thinner than the powder. The top frame is a very complex mechanism and some parts are not designed to be disassembled. I laid out my frame on some 2x4s and took pictures from multiple angles and even did a walk around video with my phone to fully document the direction of the pivot bushings, wave washer and nuts & bolts. I also recommend that you measure the adjustment points and document these numbers for reassembly. Tag & bag each pivot bolt, don't just throw everything into the same bag and expect to figure it out later. I even went so far as to arrange out all the nuts and bolts and bushings in their relative positions with the bolts pointed the correct way and took a picture. This helped me immensely when I was reassembling.
I was able to fit each section of the folding arms into my media blasting cabinet to remove the old paint and rust. My rear (floating ) bow was rusted beyond repair and was replaced with a new repop'd part from Convertible Top Specialists, the other middle bows were easy enough to clean up with a little sand paper. My front header bow had significant rust on the under side corners and required sheetmetal patches to make it useable.This part was too large to fit in the blasting cabinet and was cleaned up with wire wheel on my grinder and followed up with a rust conversion spray inside and out. Here is a link to my rebuild thread, the convertible top resto starts on page 7 at post#244.
Thinks for the tips and the pictures, it helps me visualize how big of a project this is. My powder coat guy says he has done convertible top assemblies in the past. I’m not sure what make and model they were for though I will have to ask him. He said he minimizes the amount of powder in the pivot points with tape and he can go in with a tiny air nozzle to blow the powder off certain areas before he bakes it. I actually have two complete assemblies, my plan is to redo both and to sell one to cover the cost of the top material and installation.
