I did a search and only came up with a for sale thread. Has anybody documented a targo top conversion? Would it be very difficult to accomplish this on a hardtop fiero? I would love to do this.

It would flex the car more than a T-top conversion. Years ago I found a thread in the archives.
At the very least you'll need to brace the bottom of the car, or it'll start sagging.

You have to put quite a bit into frame bracing, though, it's not really that difficult to do. Can you even count the number of convertible or roadster conversions?

Look up "The Dirty Rat" - it was a chop-top-targa setup; which was, in my opinion, about as good as a Fiero can get from the standpoint of "low slung, open air road warrior."

quote Originally posted by Darksyde: I would love to do this.

A place called B & B Customs in florida did the work on the Dirty Rat car and you can see it all in the Dirty rat thread. There used to be a few places here in Los Angeles that did the targa tops in the small pick-up trucks that were popular years ago, but it's hard to say if they're still around. Unless you're Very good at working with a space frame, it's probably not something you want to do at home.

Doc John has a targa and there are some pics in his build thread:
//www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum3/HTML/000006.html

I wouldnt recomed it (too much work) and from what I remember I think the "Dirty Rat fiero" targa top leaked.Heres a few pics of the Dirty Rat car.

The answer is: yes, it's possible. I've had a targa top on my Fiero/328 replica for over 10 years. Yep, it's nice on a sunny day! The bad news: no kit is currently available, which means you would need to do a LOT of sourcing of parts and fabrication.

The problem is that you will have two separate issues to tackle. First, you'll need the actual targa itself, which will consist of the top panel, front and rear caps, and some sort of mechanism to secure the targa to the car. Here are a few pictures to show what I mean:



This is the kit installed on a 512/BBi kit made by Randy Corson a few years ago. You can see the locks on the sides of the targa panel, they are from a late 80's Firebird t-top. They don't fit exactly and have to be tweaked a little (not too hard, mostly cutting since the Fiero roof opening with a targa is a lot shorter than the Firebird). Gaskets are also Firebird parts, you might try wrecking yards to find them.

Here are the front/rear caps being installed on my car. You'll need to fab something like these.






The second thing you'll need to do is strengthen the frame. The Fiero space frame is pretty strong, but when you cut the top section out you create a MAJOR weakness (it's no longer triangulated front-to-back). So, you will have to restore that structural integrity somehow. "C" clips around the doors may be part of the answer:







Obviously these need to be welded in place. They won't do the job completely, you will still need some sort of subframe support underneath the car. Mine comes from a convertible kit; it's welded in place and pulls the front and rear cradles together. Between the two types of support, it feels strong enough. Another approach would be to contact Archie, he built a roadster a few years ago and he came up with a steel kit could be welded in that really stiffened the frame.

Good luck, the project can be done - but be ready to spend a fair amount of time and money on it!

[This message has been edited by Doc John (edited 02-24-2010).]

dayum this seems like a ton of work. lol I have done one on a S10 p/u in the past. But that was a kit and the S10 has a Frame so it made it rather easy. I would just love to have T-tops/Targa top. But alas there is never a easy way.

so,there aren't any targa kit for avaolable for sale now?

I have a targa Fiero and love it, but I bought it that way already completed.
If you have good welding skills then the task should not be that difficult to do, the key is designing an "X" brace that will be your new structural suport to compensate for the missing roof (which make up a large protion of the strucural integrity of the car). Also you want to design the bracing so that you can remove the gas tank if you ever need to, that one needs no explination.
Your next task will be finding a way to carry the roof with you when you take it off. The roof section is wider than any storage space available on the car, that was the reason why the "dirty rat" got a custom made two part section so that the owner could carry the roof in the trunk.

It would be very nice and interesting for many Fiero owners that someone will launch on the market again a targa conversion kit, a replica of he old corson's or B&B...

I'm tryng to build a 328 replica and the targa kit would be perfect for the "GTS " saga.....

no one has anything more to say about it?

Neither T.top convesrion is still available?

T-Top kits are available used, or by finding a car with them already installed.

A Used T-Top Kit will generally consist of the entire Fiero roof chopped off partially down the A and B pillars, you have to recover the various T-Top pieces from that and install them onto your own car. I used to see them come up on ebay from time to time, or in the mall section here.

To properly create a Targa-Top, you are looking at about $10-20K to build one you can then make copies from. It is just too costly to do it right.

J.

Doing a targa top was a LOT easier 15 years ago when you could call Randy Corson and order a kit right off the shelf. Even though the kit needed a little tweaking, it was an excellent place to start. Most of the hard work was already done.

Your best bet for a targa-style experience might be to track down a t-top Fiero being parted out. In order to offer the t-top as stock equipment in 1988, GM had to have crash-tested (and passed by 1988 standards) a t-top Fiero. The t-top center bar alleviates the need to weld in a lot of steel under the car to support the frame. While custom building a one-off targa top is certainly possible, there will be a lot of work involved in making it look good, fit good, be (relatively) water-proof, and keeping the car from flexing like overcooked pasta. It is critical to compensate for the structural integrity that will be lost when the roof is cut open - you really CAN'T overengineer this. Once you think it is strong enough, stand on the door sill and bounce up and down with your arm simultaneously touching the front and rear edges of the targa opening. If it still flexes, you're not done yet.

As an FYI, I can store the targa top from my car in the passenger section of the car behind the seats - similar to how the top is stored on Ferrari 308's & 328's. This is only possible, however, because I've replaced the center console with the Pisa Euro dash. I'll take a picture this weekend to show how this works.

quote Originally posted by 328 mera: no one has anything more to say about it?

If you've got the money I've got the time. However, I won't begin to estimate how much time it will take. The first thing is to dis-assemble the body panels and interior & reinforce the frame, same as if you're doing it for a convertible. Then you cut the roof & fabricate the front & rear caps, then the targa. It's not really that hard to do, just very time consuming.
I'm pretty sure it would be less than the $10k mentioned elsewhere....
~ Paul
aka "Tha Driver"

Which do you most can't the least?
What I most can't the least, would be do not a bad job but always a good.

[This message has been edited by Tha Driver (edited 05-24-2010).]

@ Doc john:
i've seen your 18+years bulding thread, and read about problems in reinforcing spaceframe once you've "lost" your standard top.
As italian i really dislike overcooked pasta,and cars structures fliexing like it.

@ Driver.

I'm in Italy and i could do the conversion by myselk,cause ,you understand, it would be logistically pretty hard to have a shot in the arm by you in the U.S.

A question:

has anybody in the forum have checked (at the time) the B&B spyder targa kit?

I'll wait for your pics, DOC John....


lamps!

quote Originally posted by 328 mera: A question: has anybody in the forum have checked (at the time) the B&B spyder targa kit?

The B&B kit (or a modified version done by B&B) is what was installed on the Dirty Rat. Here is a good thread about it and its overall quality (or lack there of).
//www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/040339.html

I finally got around to taking a few close-up photos of my targa -- the emphasis here is on how it is secured to the car.

First, here is a picture of the top on the car:



I put some drip rail material on both sides. Without it, ANY water drips right into an open window. IIRC, even if the windows were closed, rain water tended to "wick" into the car past the seals - so the drip rails helped to solve two problems at once.

[This message has been edited by Doc John (edited 06-06-2010).]

I want to see a pic of how its is reinforced under the car please.

Doc John;

Thanks a ton for taking those pics and explaining how this all works. I recently bought a 308 replica and it came with a targa top installed already.

The targa was put in by Aldino down in the States (they do the BB512 replca style body) so anyone looking to get a targa, they might still have them. Not sure when this one was put in but it was just in the last couple years as far as I know.

I still need to do the additional reinforcing required to get it solid again. I have a full 2x3 box frame under my 355 replica that I cut up into the cockpit about 3/4" for ground clearance and it ties the front cross member, the front frame where the small round bar normally goes in front of the gas tank back to the rear engine cradle. It is all welded to the cockpit along the length. I also extended the engine cradle mounts to have two bolts each side and removed the rubber mounts so everything is hard mounted. The 355 replica doesn't flex at all but there is a fair amount of extra metal in the car now.....

Thanks again
Don

[This message has been edited by 355Fiero (edited 07-13-2010).]

any news about eventually other targa conversions?

Bloozberry had a very creative take on the targa in his 308 stinger thread, but it could be of value here as well...
//www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/083063.html

quote Originally posted by Bloozberry: About the targa top, I took a drive in the Stinger "show car" which had the true targa where the roof pillars had been cut, and the floor reinforced with an X frame. I came away quite disappointed with chassis flex. Perhaps there have been improvements in the way people stiffen Fiero floor pans on convertibles since then, but at the time I decided I wanted the function over form in this area. I opened up the sheet metal hole in the sunroof area leaving only the pillars to give the largest possible hole though. The top itself uses a modified Nissan Pulsar targa top locking mechanism. Here's a close up of the top area with the targa on and off:

quote Originally posted by Bloozberry: Since you asked Synthesis: The first thing you should be aware of if you decide to do this mod to your Mera, is that the rear edge of the top horizontal section of the windshield frame has an integral up-turned duck-tail wind-deflector on the acctual 308 GTS. If your Mera has a solid roof, then you’ll need to do more than just cut out a targa panel from your fiberglass roof. You’ll also need to form the top of the windshield frame with some fiberglass to get the duck-tail. I didn't have to do this to mine since this was a design feature of the Stinger from the get-go. I found however that the stock sunroof hole in the space frame was considerably smaller than the targa panel so I started by removing as much material as I dared to make it larger. It’s a bad picture made even worse by the fact that I had to scan it in for you… after all, there were no digital cameras back in 1995 when I did this! But it does show you how much I removed from the front edge. I also removed an equal amount around the sides too, then closed up the space between the inner and outer sheet metal layers with some hammer-formed steel. To make the targa panel rigid, I bondo’ed aluminum angle to the underside of the top. I had planned on using the stock rear epoxy “mill & drill” roof mounting pads on the Fiero chassis to secure the top’s rear corners of the targa panel, so I also bondo’ed some 5/16” bolts to the underside of the top at that time. Never mind the front mounting pins in this photo since I changed the design early on. Finally, I bondo’ed the fiberglass headliner into place which made it very rigid. My kit came with the pre-formed fiberglass headliner, but you can buy virtually the same thing from The Fiero Store… you’ll just need to trim it to shape and upholster it. Since my kit didn’t come with any instructions at all (let alone how to mount the targa top), I discovered after scouring the junkyards that the old Nissan Pulsars had a T-top latch mechanism that would work within the available space. I ended up bolting the mechanisms onto the aluminum angle I had installed earlier, and even using the trim panels from the Pulsar after a modest amount of trimming and shaping. They're not perfect, but they do the job. In these two pictures you can see how operating the handle retracts the pin at the front, while the rear is held down by a big plastic red nut at each corner to draw it down onto those rear mill & drill pads. After the work was done on the roof panel, I glued some headliner material to the inside, and some landau top vinyl on the outside. By having cut the sunroof hole larger, it also gave me the space to install the Pulsar’s cast aluminum eyelets to catch the retractable pins between the two layers of the space frame steel near the top corners of the windshield. The eyelets have a plastic bushing to minimize rattle. Here you can see how I installed the eyelet at the front, and the mill & drill hole I used at the rear. When you cut off the weld flanges around the sides of the stock sunroof sheet metal, just be sure to leave the rear mill & drill pads. Lastly, the Stinger targa panel was only just long enough in the trunk area to allow the top to be stowed in the rear compartment, but not before cutting down the rear-most trunk wall down to the level of the uppper rear cross member (about 8” down). That allowed me to lay the top flat inside the trunk. I don’t have any pictures of the way it used to be because I was rear-ended two years ago and did a complete redesign of the rear compartment sheet metal, moving the entire rear wall and cross member back considerably, like this: Here's what it looks like upholstered... … and how the targa top sits in there. Again, if you decide to install a targa top, it should fit with just the top 6” shaved off the rear trunk wall. Just make a few critical measurements before you decide on how wide the targa panel should be before you start cutting it from the roof panel! After a bit of experimenting, I found the right combination of rubber weatherstrips in the right areas to keep the top from letting water in, so that worked out well. My only gripe is that it’s a bit squeaky over rough roads. I have to keep spraying silicone lubricant on the seals every now & then to minimize the noises, but then again, I don’t usually drive with the top on anyways! Just post any questions or if you want a better photo of something (it was raining cats & dogs so I was forced to take most of the pictures inside today).

quote Originally posted by fieroguru: Bloozberry had a very creative take on the targa in his 308 stinger thread, but it could be of value here as well... //www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/083063.html

I've already read it; quite interesting, however!

we still miss a tarta top kit

what kind of wheels are those?