Progress on #782

[cscobra]

Dan - I wound up taking out about ¾" from the main bow and ⅞" from the rear bow (at the center of each) for the best fit on my top. Fortunately, I didn't need to modify any other parts except for installing larger screws for the top latch hooks on the windshield posts, as previously described.

On a side note, I installed a Sunbeam Tiger shift boot a year ago which solved all of my "popping out of gear" problems. This topic has been dealt with before on this forum, but here is a link to the vendor where I bought mine: http://www.rootes.com/

If your shifting problems disappear with your current shift boot completely pulled away from the tunnel, then this solution may work for you. The Tiger shift boot is thinner and much more pliable than the ones supplied with our ERA kits (possibly other kit brands, too); it looks identical when installed. This simple change made me a happy camper.

[DanEC]

Cscobra - There must be a lot of variation in these bows if you didn't have to cut the windshield bow to miss the clips. I had to cut about an inch off both of mine. I think I'm going to be cutting close to 2 to 2-1/2 inches out of my back bow before all is done. I have 1-1/2 inches cut out now but it's no where close to fitting yet. Part of that could be differences in where we located the lift-a-dot tabs on the top hem. Mine is pretty snug at the snap right at the outside corners and I wish I had moved it out another 1/4 to 3/8 inch.

Since I installed the transmission shifter spacer from ERA I haven't had any problems with it kicking out of gear. But I might still check into that Tiger boot as the ERA one is pretty thick.

Thanks

Dan

[cscobra]

Agree with the probability of variation.

I would predict that you'd be happy with the shift boot change.

[cscobra]

It will look better with the rear bow in position. Keep pulling (gently!) the material to each side and forward--you'll get there.

[1795]

It looks like you are making progress. I agree that you should try to gently pull some of the material forward and down on the sides. The problem is that given the disparity between the shape of the bows and the windshield, it will be very hard to have a smooth line on those side slopes. You should be able to tighten it up a little more; however most of the tops that I have seen certainly do not look perfect.

[DanEC]

Except for the final push when I get ready to glue it down, I've pulled the top forward pretty firmly. A lot of it is controlled by the main bow placement. It has to be bent forward/backwards to basically fit the pleat in the corners of the top when the top material is firmly pulled to the windshield. I think I have that in pretty good shape given the back bow is not there at this time. The fit around the sidecurtains, especially at the back is good also.

ERA's instructions are also to keep pulling the material to the front and I'm not sure if there is something in this instruction that I'm missing or not. Right now there is definately some pressure on the windshield and I'm a little worried about putting much more on it.

I think once I get it glued and anchored at the center then I can work at pulling it a little tighter to the sides. I think I may have to actually remove it to glue it to the leg that turns down the windshield to get it good and tight - or just raise the end up off the windshield some to create a little slack. From my tugging on it, that seems to be what will minimize that lose area above the side curtains.

Cscobra - does this sound about right? All comments, lessons learned, photos and observations are welcome.

Dan

[DanEC]

Finished the top today. Glued down the fabric to the front bow. First, I trial fit the clamps and drilled the holes for riveting them later. Jack had said to cut the front bow about an inch above the hooks on the windshield frame but fortunately I trial fit the clamps before I cut them off and found that would have been way too much. I cut 3/4 inch above the hooks and that left enough bow to catch both clamp rivets. Cutting 5/8 inch above the hooks would probably had been better. I then re-fit the front bow and pulled the material tight over it and taped it down. Then, I untaped one half at a time, applied glue to the front of the bow and then tugged and pulled the top back into position over it and taped it back down. Then I did the other side. After setting, I removed the front bows, cut the fabric to leave about 7/8 inch to fold over and glue to the inside of the bow.



I put a strip of 1/8 inch foam weather stripping down the inside of the bow. Then I riveted the clamps on. I preened the rivets down as best I could.



I trimmed the fabric on the end and folded it into the inside of the bow and covered the backside of the rivets. The welting kind of stick out on the turndown of the bow which I think helps it shed water. At the center between the front bows, I trimmed the material to leave a tab long enough to fold over twice and glue - so it was 3 layers thick. I think I could have made it 4 layers thick without problem. I will probably put a piece of self-adhesive 1/8 inch weatherstripping on it later.

I put the top back on and snapped it back down with just the main back bow in place. In my case I found it easier to start fastening the lift-a-dots down starting at the center and working around to the sides. It snaps down pretty readily with the bow screwed all the way down. I then trial fit the rear bows individually from the inside (not fastened in the center) and tried to push them up into position. They were still way too long and I started cutting a 1/2 inch off at a time until I could bolt one side in standing straight up by the main bow - stab the other side into it and force it up enough to get the other screw in. It was still too long when I tried to rotate it back into position and I trimmed some more until I could manage to force it from a vertical position, back into position and snap the locating strap over it. When I say force it - it took quite a bit to rotate it back and once it was in position it was obvious it was pushing the main bow forward out of it's proper position because it was just a little too tall for the contour of the top.

Back to my bench vise and I worked the corner bend of the rear bow sections into a tighter radius from the hinge point.



After a couple trial efforts at this everything was getting pretty close but the main bow was still pushed about an inch too far farward and I had shortened the back bow radius by about 1-1/2 inches. To get the main bow back in it's proper position I bent the top part back a little above the hinge point. So the main bows are kind of "S" curved from the side with a bend forward just above the ferrule and a bend rearward just above the hinge point. This seemed to do the trick and everything pretty much fell in place. I unscrewed the adjusters about 1/4 inch to tighten everything up.









It's pretty snug and taunt. Probably will look a little better if I park it out in the sun for a couple of hours. About the only issue I see is that the rear of the side curtains seem to be a little high for the profile of the opening in the top. The side curtain doesn't snug into the top pocket although it can be pushed up and over the top of the sidecurtain from inside or outside to seal it a little better. I thought cranking up the adjusters a little and getting the rear bow in would fix this but it still is a little off.

[kevins2]

Hi Dan,

Looking good and I appreciate you documenting this as thoroughly as you have. I'll bet you'll be glad to be done with it. I'll be reading through this thread again very closely once my top arrives. Today I made rubber washers for the door ferrules. Like you, I wasn't keen on the metal to paint contact. I plan to put some weather stripping on the side curtains and make sure they fit properly before starting on the top.

Regards,

Kevin

[cscobra]

Congratulations, Dan!

[spf645]

Dan

Top looks great. I remember doing the same thing your going through now, when building a P- speedster kit years back. Though not in the build manual, I added a support rod between the windshield bow and the first main bow. Drilled a small indention in the windshield bow, center, then drilled hole into the main one, (center and at angle to face the indention I'd made in the windshield bow), not all way through it though, for rod to seat into. Rod end that went to the front had a thick rubber pointed cap on it.. (Excess part from something I had around here). Back of it went into the second, main bow, hole that I drilled there.

I know it's not the correct thing to do on your car, but it sure did stop all that flopping and noise that go along with these type of tops.

Just an idea from 30 years ago,, Beautiful car you have there.

Brett

[1795]

Dan,

Very well done; you appear to have tightened up a lot of those earlier wrinkles that you were worried about. I too will be going back to your thread when I get a top. How many hours do you think that you have invested in the top? I think that you are right in that getting the top out into the hot sun may help it settle in.

Jim

[DanEC]

Originally Posted by 1795

Dan,

Very well done; you appear to have tightened up a lot of those earlier wrinkles that you were worried about. I too will be going back to your thread when I get a top. How many hours do you think that you have invested in the top? I think that you are right in that getting the top out into the hot sun may help it settle in.

Jim

Jim/Keven - I have a lot of hours in it. Not sure I could accurately guess. Probably 4 or 5 days - maybe 30 hours. A lot of them were from being a little cautious in going to the next step. There was a lot of time spent just staring at the thing figuring out what to bend, twist, pull next. Basically the top has to be snapped down after fitting each lift-a-dot and then removed after marking where to install the next one. I can definately see where ERA gets $800 for fitting the top (I think that is right). One thing I know is that the bows are critical and have to have a lot of work to fit properly. They basically are just raw stock when you get them. I spent hours tweaking them and the windshield bow. A heavy bench vise is critical although some bending can be done over the knee. I used a piece of old heater hose to slide the bow into and a couple lengths of heavy leather over that to protect the bow tubing and my powder coat.

But I did learn a number of lessons learned that should benefit others - I will try to write down a better orgainized step by step list. It may have just been me, but it took some studying the little straps that secure the rear bow inside, in trying to understand where the snaps go. Then I realized the strap was sew to the top with two lines of stitch-work with a gap between and one side of the snap goes in that gap and the post part of the snap slips between the fabric and strap from the side. I piece of 1 inch wide metal or something can be slipped in there also to buck it up when the snap is preened over the post/back. Also, the ERA-supplied snaps have different length posts, one length for the male and the other for the female side. Of course I screwed that up - but fortunately I had a bunch of snaps left over from my leather holster building days from years ago.

Picking the lift-a-dots locations is also nerve wracking. Most of mine seem to have worked fine in the end but if I were doing it over I would slightly shifted the location of a couple of them just a little.

Cutting the bows is a crazy process. I cut 1 inch out of the main bow - in hindsight I think I could have taken only a 1/2 inch out and been OK. No cut would probably have been too tight. But it worked out OK as the top is very tight with the adjusters screwed out just 1/4 inch or less. That 1/4 inch allows the top to snap down relatively easy with the adjusters screwed all the way in. The back bow was a lot different. I need to re-total but I think I had to take nearly 3 inches out. The back bow when I started, stood about 1-1/2 inches higher than the main bow when folded together. By the time I re-shaped the corner bends of the back bow it was only about 1/4 inch higher than the main bow. And it was still slightly pushing the main bow too far forward - thus the slight bend to the rear I made in the main bow right above the hinge point. All that shortening of the rear bow corners put more length to the center which I had to cut out to get the width to meet the main bow again. But, it came out good and is really nice and tight back there now.

Enough rattling on for now. Now, I'm wondering if the side curtains can be modified to shorten them slightly at the rear so they fit in the top pocket better. I'm going to study that some.

Thanks.

[DanEC]

The side curtains are assembled with exposed rivets and it looks like drilling them out and adjusting the overall heigth is simple. There's a good 1/4 inch slack in the vertical heigth of the plexiglass and the posts are not seated down in the bottom of the sill plates. I just need to find a source of pre-finished black 1/8 inch rivets. I think after getting this done I'm going to be pretty happy with the overall results.

[kevins2]

Awesome Dan. Good to know that there is a lot of latitude for adjusting the bows to get the wrinkles out. Looks good.

Kevin

[frdfver]

Nice job on the top installation, turned out looking real good. I to am having to modify my side curtains , I thought it was because I was trying to install an original top on to a NAF body. Even looking back at original cars with tops it seems as though none of them fit all that well.

Paul T.

[DanEC]

Originally Posted by frdfver

Nice job on the top installation, turned out looking real good. I to am having to modify my side curtains , I thought it was because I was trying to install an original top on to a NAF body. Even looking back at original cars with tops it seems as though none of them fit all that well.

Paul T.

Thanks. Yes, I don't think precision was ever one of the attributes of these tops. They aren't a whole lot advanced from a conestoga wagon or buggy canvas top. It does a reasonable job of keeping the air off of you but it looks like any downpour would probably flood the interior in just slightly more time than no top at all.

Originally Posted by 1795

Dan,

A very professional looking job. If you are ever looking for some side work, I think that ERA would hire you Not a simple job to have to adapt what you receive, but as you say, it is doable. Looks pretty smooth now.

Not surprised that the top gets a little noisy at about 50 mph, they are not meant to be a permanent top; just something to keep the rain off of you in a downpour, and then stowed in the boot.

I had someone suggest to me that getting in an out of one with the top on and side pipes can be a little tricky.

I ordered a tonneua cover from ERA and it should be here in a couple of weeks. I am going to start with that before I move on to the top.

Maybe after you are done in PA you could swing by upstate NY...there is plenty of room at the inn

Thanks. Yes, getting in or out of the thing is a challenge - I hadn't thought about the side pipe element (since I don't have them) but that certainly would be another complicating factor. Probably best to carry a welding blanket around to throw over the door sill because so far I haven't perfected a routine for entry or exit yet. I never know if I'm coming out feet first or crawling out on all fours.

I think I'm going to finish up my gradual transtition to full retirement this year. Maybe that's an idea - Dan's traveling roadster top installation service.

[kevins2]

Originally Posted by DanEC

...Yes, getting in or out of the thing is a challenge - I hadn't thought about the side pipe element (since I don't have them) but that certainly would be another complicating factor. Probably best to carry a welding blanket around to throw over the door sill ...

A welding blanket works great and I recommend it for anyone that doesn't have heat shields on sidepipes. Most passengers don't need them but I've used it a couple of times. Installed it with a couple of snaps and it rolls up between the seat and door sill. Sounds like a must have with a top on.



Kevin

[DanEC]

I updated my post #488 on page 33 with some lessons learned on my experiences with fitting my roadster top.

[1795]

Dan,

The description of your process should be very helpful to others contemplating doing their own top. I am a little jealous of how nice the top looks without the roll bar extension at the back. It has a much smoother line. The tops, and tonneau covers definitely do shrink and expand quite a bit based upon the ambient temperature and direct sunlight. I left my top on all winter, as I plan on taking the car out in the spring as soon as the snow melts and I knew that it would be much more difficult fitting the top cold.

Jim

[Detroit Bill]

I just read the whole tread, ok I confess I skimmed quite a bit of it. What a journey. How many miles are on it now?