MGF Softtop replacement

The idea of driving a Roadster is to drive it without the roof as much as possible, but to make this possible you do want to have a good soft top in case you run into bad weather. The hardtop on our F is very good, but the soft top was tatty and the plastic rear window had torn.   

 Considering the options, I decided it would be best to find a good used top and replace the whole assembly. After a bit of asking around, I found this one from a slightly later car with an improved MK2 top.

  This is how the top came off the car. I had some doubt about this slimy and moldy affair, but the seller told me it would come out "as new" after a good clean with a power washer. 

 So this is what I did. As instructed, I attacked the top with just clean water from the pressure washer. I did clean the inside with a little soap though.

Here we have one very wet but clean top.

While I left the wet top outside to dry, I started to remove my old top. 

First I removed the rear plastic panel behind the seats to reveal the four mounting bolts.

Then unclipped  the five clips under the rear window

After this the whole assembly came off, by removing two bolts on both sides behind the seats

Then I could just lift out the whole thing. 

Refitting is literally the reverse of dismantling. I only needed to swap one of the front clips and fiddle a little with the top, so it would close without hitting the windscreen surround. 

 There it is: a clean soft top with an unbroken rear screen.

I think the MGF is one of the few cars that look just as good with the roof up (or hardtop) as well as down.