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Hurst Hatch Recall Kits

GM issued a recall to help reduce leaking in 1970's cars with Hurst t-tops. These kits included a revised weatherstrip that included a channel for water to run off the car. This weatherstripping looks a lot like Fisher t-top weatherstripping. Bill Puzio located and sold a number of the kits last year, and he was nice enough to send a bunch of photos for us to see what this equipment looked like new.

News Flash! We have recently located a set of installation instructions for this recall kit!
As with the troubleshooting manual, I am making copies for $6 each including shipping. More information at Hoghead's For Sale Page.

Step into Hoghead's Time machine for a trip back to the GM warehouse in 1979. Here's where the kits were found. I don't think there are any more, so don't get your hopes up.

F-body (Firebird)

This box contains the F-body recall kit, packed neatly away. The f-body recall required using the old t-tops, so they weren't part of the kit. This photo shows the new weatherstripping for the t-tops, hardware, roof gasket material (on the roll), and new interior moldings. The moldings, which hold the headliner up, are a nice improvement over the original design..
The new roof rail weatherstripping has a channel in it for rain to run off. The channel is visible in this photo. Up until recently, there was still a considerable amount of this weatherstripping available from various people who sell NOS parts. T-top weatherstrips were almost identical to the first design, but the angle of the end joints is different.
New roof frames were required to mount the new design weatherstripping. These frames came in two colors. These are black, for a Trans Am Special Edition. In this close view you can see the ends of the tops were beefed up underneath, unlike the first design frames. The hole in the car's roof had to be modified in this area.
When these particular Firebird recall kits were made, they came with a short interior molding, with a number of small pieces that shaped the end. This is the "early" recall kit. Here are those 8 short pieces. This setup looks like a big molding that was broken into a bunch of pieces by accident, so it's important to know it was supplied this way. The 4 pieces in the middle are new sockets to snap in the slots in the old t-tops.
Here's the alternative molding, used in "late" recall kits. It had long tails on both ends that shaped the weatherstripping near the roof rail. I'm not sure of the cutoff date between early and late.

One thing to note on these late moldings is that they have half a screw hole in the end. As a result, they always look like they're broken, even when they're not.

Here are the alternative frames. Firebird recall kits also came with silver frames, for cars that weren't Special Editions.

A and G-body

The Grand Prix kit was quite a lot different. For one thing, you got new t-tops. It looks like, from this picture, that the G-body kit came in two boxes, one of which contained the t-tops. The frames and weatherstripping were in this box, which isn't big enough for the t-tops.
Here's a nice big picture showing some of the G-body kit. These only came in one color. The design of the frames is similar to the F-body, but the shape on the end is very different because the G-body had a sharp crease along the roof rail.
Here's another view of the frames, along with their hardware and the new t-top plastic (which would have to be painted to match your interior) The t-tops weren't assembled. The new clamping levers were also kept separate.
A strange thing about the tops is they didn't have any frames. Tabs that hooked into the roof frames were bolted on. The orignal first design tops had been framed, and like most t-tops, had sockets that hooked into tabs on the roof. Here's a closeup of the Hurst/Hatch symbol in these new, never used t-tops. If you get bored, you can look up this patent and see what they claimed.

Need more info?

We've made a lengthy comparison of the pre-recall and post-recall designs on our Junk Hurst T-top Page. The changes are also covered in the Hurst t-top manuals that we sell.