87 Town Car Body. Carriage roof replacement, Door Handle adjustment, Sunroof Install

[87stars_stripes]

87 Town Car Body. Carriage roof replacement, Door handle Adjustment, Sunroof Install,

1987 Town Car Stars and Stripes with the blue signature cloth roof. I've heard it refeed to as a carriage roof as well. Always been curious about how much I can expect to fork over for a new top. I spoke with a top shop once who told me that this car has a fiberglass shell over the roof that normally breaks when you attempt to strip the original top. Is that true? Next question. I want to atleast remove the trim that runs horizontally across the back of the top to wrap it in new material and replace it just for now. How do I get that piece off? 2 screws on each end, but it felt like it was secured with something else as well.

Next topic. My rear door handles have to be manipulated to open. I believe the rods are out of adjustment. Any suggestions?

Also I've been curious what it would take to install a factory sunroof/ moonroof in my Town Car if the top was already removed awaiting replacement. I want to find a factory town car unit, or maibe even something better

[sxcpotatoes]

I dunno about the carriage top hoodoo, but you're going to need an aftermarket sunroof put in for a cost of $1200+ or thereabouts. FEW of these ever came from the factory with a sunroof. Most all of them were LOCAL conversions where the dealer sent them out. I think the factory ones came with chrome trim, or something differentiating them from the aftermarket ones. Actually, IIRC Ford shipped out the cars to a third party installer to put the sunroof in back in the day in the brand new cars.

[L1011tristar17]

My car has the same carriage top and I have gone to a few different upholstery places for estimates. I have been quoted anywhere from $800 to $1200, which depends a lot on the area that you live in, the labor involved, and the quality of work done. The fiberglass shell is glued on to the roof but also has a few anchor bolts that are towards the middle of the roof. The tricky part is undoing those, which in most cases involves dropping the headliner and prying off the shell with a large prybar. If the place you take it to is any good, they should be able to remove the shell without breaking it.

For the door handles I would pop off the door panels and look at the rods. Originally they had these plastic bushings that kept the rods in place. It's possible that those have fallen off and the rod has a lot of room to wiggle around. You could either find new clips or, as a cheaper alternative, use zipties. The zipties have worked for me for almost three years.

The sunroof bit might be hard, especially with the carriage roof. I've seen very few Town Car's out there with that combination and in my opinion it looks funny. You would probably need a new fiberglass shell and headliner board, or just cut through the ones you already have. If you really want to fork over the cash there might be some places that do professional installs of sunroofs/moonroofs.

[Piece-it pete]

I've seen harvested complete moonroofs at the JY, TCs with the glass, track, and headliner removed, just FYI.

Pete