Cleaning the soft top (Pacific Roadster)

[hmk123]

I bought a 2004 Thunderbird Pacific Roadster Edition two months ago and really love the car.

I did notice though that when I close and open the soft top, light dark stains seem to appear just from that process of having it down. Are others experiencing that, too? I guess it comes from the metal frame parts of the roof. Anyway to avoid those? When I clean the roof they seem to go away but I do need to spend a bit of time to get them off.

By the way, what is the recommended way to clean the soft top. So far I have been using my normal car wash stuff.


On a different note: has anyone ordered th satellite option? Am wondering where they put the antenna and how that looks like.

Thanks,
Hans

 

[birdman]

To save you a search of the formum I'll recap on what others have recommended for soft top cleaning. Wolfstein's RaggTopp Cleaner is an excellent product to use if you follow the instructions on the container. I'm also very impressed with the reults of using the RaggTopp Protectant. I don't hesitate to recommend it to anyone who wants to renew the look of their soft top and protect it for the environment as well. I can't vouch for anyone else's experiences applying the protectant, but I want to share a tip that I found helpful. Being the skeptic I am I masked the leading edge of windshield trim, side window weatherstripping and rear body paint with 3 inch wide masking tape prior to the protectant application. I'm glad I did. To my knowledge the overspray isn't harmful to the car finish, but it is unsightly. It also takes a bit of elbow grease to remove the overspray. Even with the use of masking tape I still experienced a small amount of protectant overspray on my Tbird. Through trial and error I found the best method for removing the overspray was with a clean terry cloth hand towel dampened with isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol. All of this may sound like a headache to some, but I found the effort worth it as the top looks brand new & beads water. The masking tape job took all of ten minutes & the overspray cleanup about 20 minutes, once I found a method that worked.