Protection for vinyl roof

[caprice_2nv]

I'm thinking I've been neglecting preventative maintenance on my vinyl roof of my "winter beater" 1983 Chevy Caprice. It gets used daily all winter here in Ontario Canada where it gets salt and liquid brine or whatever it's called they spray our roads with. In the summer it sits in the sun and gets driven occasionally.

The roof was like new when I bought it ten years ago because previous owners kept it in a garage when parked. The roof is starting to fade and has a couple of cracks now since my usage has been much harder on it.

Any suggestions for product to keep the vinyl from getting worse (cracking). I'm going to be painting the car black (including the vinyl) so I don't care about shine or color, just trying to keep from having to do the big job of removing the vinyl roof altogether.

 

[atikovi]

Either remove the vinyl completely and and paint the car without it, or get a new vinyl top after painting the car. Painting over 35 year old cracked vinyl will look crappy. And if you put any preservative on it, paint isn't going to stick to it.

 

[ZZman]

303 protectant

 

[earlyre]

see... that's what happens when you put the roadkill stickers on... things start breaking...because, Roadkill...

 

[MrMoody]

Originally Posted by atikovi
Either remove the vinyl completely and and paint the car without it, or get a new vinyl top after painting the car. Painting over 35 year old cracked vinyl will look crappy. And if you put any preservative on it, paint isn't going to stick to it.

This. No doubt it has started to rust underneath, too, the curse of old vinyl tops. If you don't care what it looks like or about the rust bubbles that will be coming soon, just paint over it.

 

[Yah-Tah-Hey]

Probably one of the worst features ever offered on a vehicle. You have to expect exposing vinyl anything is going to deteriorate when exposed to the elements.

 

[Garak]

The garage is the only real answer, unfortunately. You got lucky that it had been so stored before. Vinyl tops in the day never held up well. One Oldsmobile we had, a few years older than your Caprice, had the vinyl replaced before the decade was out! Yes, my dad actually had the vinyl roof replaced and not simply removed.

It was around an '82 or '83 and it was redone around '88.

 

[aquariuscsm]

I would just use a good spray wax.

 

[Driz]

There's no saving that stuff. Just get it and the glue off of there and have a shop shoot that roof. Who knows you might get lucky and the paint under there will match and be in good shape. That glue will be a time consuming chore but doable.
A heat gun will help in getting it to peel back. Lacquer thinner will usually loosen the stuck on glue remnants. It's time consuming six pack work but easy enough. In the end it's a lot cheaper than paying shop rate for some pro to do the monkey work. You might get lucky and end it right there if it matches. If not it's it is a snap , a pint of paint and coat of clear from a paint shop. Pretty simple work for those guys just scuff, tape and shoot .

 

[caprice_2nv]

It's actually getting painted hot rod block (matte black basically), so I'm not keeping the brown anyway. I'm not looking forward to spending that much time on the roof. It's actually still in pretty good shape other than the couple little blisters.

My first caprice I bought from my best friend just after high school and he had his friend paint it cheaply they just painted over the vinyl and it stuck for a few years before it started to chip off in spots if I remember right.

 

[PimTac]

Now is your chance to go retro. Peel off the vinyl and get a fuzzy paint job on that roof.

 

[caprice_2nv]

I figured it would be retro enough with the flat black paint job. The flat black is to help hide the dents and imperfections in the body.

It will at least be better than 3 different shades of brown (shiny at the back fenders where it was repainted after an accident long before I bought it) and faded original 83 brown, and spray bomb brown on the driver's door and front fender where I fixed a huge dent from being backed into.

 

[DweezilAZ]

Originally Posted by Garak
The garage is the only real answer, unfortunately. You got lucky that it had been so stored before. Vinyl tops in the day never held up well. One Oldsmobile we had, a few years older than your Caprice, had the vinyl replaced before the decade was out! Yes, my dad actually had the vinyl roof replaced and not simply removed.

It was around an '82 or '83 and it was redone around '88.

Dad did the same with their 72 Ambassador Brougham.

Nu Vinyl is still available, it's from the NuFinish brand. It's what I used to use on the vinyl tops when I was keeping my folk's cars clean.

 

[PowerSurge]

Meguiar's marine/rv vinyl and rubber #57. Blue bottle.