Soft top renovation

Autoglym

To be written

Renovo

To restore your roof to as new condition you will need Soft Top Refurbisher Kit -

This will take a minimum of three days to apply and the roof needs to be kept dry at the time. The only additional requirements are a paintbrush and a pot to pour the liquids into. I used a washed out Chinese takeaway tub.

Since using this kit not a single drop has leaked into my car. The kit listed at Elise parts is enough for two applications.

Cheap and cheerful

My car has covered nearly 100k miles and had started to get a fine covering of green moss. It didn't look dirty but it sure looked better after I changed it. It had not faded so I did not investigate soft top dyeing products.

You will need:

• Pure soap flakes from Wilkinson
• Dog brush from Wilkinson
• A 2 inch wide paintbrush from Wilkinson
• Fabsil from Blacks

Pure soap is the least likely to damage your hood, ordinary cloths detergent is probably fine too, don't use wasking up liquid as this has loads of salt in it which will eventually rot the hood.

The dog brush is great as it is fairly coarse (like a firm tooth brush), reasonably big so it holds the soap and has a handy strap that stops the brush slipping out of your hand when the soap really starts to fly.

Some people rave about Thompsons Water seal, however this is a brickwork sealant and I was worried that this could damage the hood so I chose to use Fabsil, which is a canvas tent sealer and seems a better fit. Water seal is much cheaper.

Buy a big can of Fabsil for about 15 quid, this should be enough for four coatings.

Directions

Mix about an egg cup full of soap flakes with about four pints or warm water, I used a saucepan for this. Lay the soft top on a flat surface (e.g. a garden table) and scrub it hard. If you have a moss/green slime problem then you will see this coming off.

Hang up the soft top up (on a washing line) and spray it with a garden hose, keep spraying until the water is all coming off clean.

leave the soft top hanging for a few hours, ideally in the sun, until its dry.

pour some Fabsil into a cereal bowl and paint it onto the outside of the soft top, make sure all the folds and pleats are throughly soaked.

hang up the soft top again to dry.

You must let the hood dry completely, the tin says fabsil can take 6 hours to dry, however on a winters day in some sunshine it only took about 2 hours for mine to dry.

refit to the car - the hood will have shrunk a bit but it will stretch back to how it was with a few uses.