hi, i'm working on my 75 914 and the targa top needs a respray. the finish has faded but in places the texture has chipped off. is there any product that will replicate the texture and finish?
i don't have a problem if it needs to be sprayed on as long as it looks correct.
thanks!

I tried fixing the troubled areas on my top with limited success. In the end, I sanded the top down just a bit and then hit it "lightly" with the same 3M undercoating that I used on the bottom of the car (left-over). How close to the original? I leave that up to the observer. It's pretty close, IMO. I think I did knock-down the undercoating with a long sanding block once it was dry in order to flatten it just a bit.

Sanded:
Click to view attachment

Retectured/Repainted:
Click to view attachment

Looks great in my book

Don’t sand very much
It’s a gel coated part
If you sand it smooth you will. Sand through the gel coat

I did that once when I wanted my top to be smooth
It spider cracked once a year without the gel coat
I had to take it to a commercial fiberglass shop to have it g coated again to stop the crazing

I had heard not to sand it too much but now I know why! Wow. Glad you got it fixed in the end. You live and learn on these things sometimes. The good part about the top, it's not part of the car

I remember testing the painting process out with cardboard first. I figured out that I needed to hold the gun pretty far back, away from the top and lightly hit the trigger. This allowed me to control how much got put down. Here's another pic of the process. You can see the texture is higher before being knocked down after it dried.

Click to view attachment

thanks miller, your top looks great. i
i do remember a episode of wheeler dealer where edd china was able to patch small areas with a product, i think i'll try and find that and if i do, i'll post it.
cheers

For anyone interested, the wheeler dealer episode is season 9 episode 5.
It's pretty interesting. Also has a great segment on the bellows used to open the cooling doors.
As for the repair to the top, he uses high build primer applied with a toothpick. Obviously not what you want to do on a entire roof but for spot repair it worked for edd.
I'll post after I've tried it.
Thanks

I've had 2 parts cars, so I took a roof and sanded it completely smooth and painted it flat black. It looks good and the paint never cracked.

I'm actually thinking about wrapping it in a carbon fiber wrap. It's a spare so if it looks good OK if not peel it off.

There was a complete thread on this a few months ago. In Originalty forum, I think.
TSP or other cleaner followed by satin black paint (can look at brand if needed). Pics posted of final result. Did it early this winter.

Also have a spare roof that was the original roof to the car.

The paint had lifted across where the targa bar is.

Was wanting to sand it flat and paint with a satin black. but don't want to get into cracking of the paint.

Maybe hit it with a couple coats of epoxy primer and block that flat. ??

then go with the satin black

would like to have something different than the textured original finish.