One Month (Un-tension Cable)

Today marks 31 days since I checked the car in for painting restoration. I forgot how an S2000 drives and I go to work by bus/taxi. That experience sucks for the most part.

Anyways, here's what happened since last post. I decided that the job done on the soft top is nowhere near what I expected from "the best customization shop" around, so I followed a friend's advice and returned it for a redo. It's good that I did, because I found out that one of my tension cables were broken.

Broken soft top tension cable

There are two such cables on an S2000 and each passes through the side of the soft top cloth, just above your window, and is supposed to hold the material tight to the frame. My options are now to either get a new cable, which, including shipping to my part of the world will cost me around $50 and two weeks, or to attempt repairing the one I have. The answer is obvious.

Step one: find a similar cable. Time: 4 hours. Money: $2.

Step two: find a guy who deals with steel and nag about your problem. He will then pry open the two metal pieces on each side of the cable, put the new cable, measured to be the same size as the old one and close the metal pieces back. Time: depends on your connections. Money: $5.

Open spring side cable holder thingy

The result:

Other good news is the airbag and seat belt have arrived.

...

One week later I picked up the reworked roof.

Brought it to the base and proceeded with a nice wash, using water and dish cleaner.

It turns out dish cleaner works pretty well on vynil soft tops.

Aside from a few imperfections with the pathches, I'd say this was a pretty good day for this roof.