Progress on #782

[ERA Chas]

Originally Posted by patrickt

A. Why are your hood latches pointed forward with the hood closed?
B. I hate to say it but the beige looks like a stool sample under garage lights...
C. You're being very helpful to Dan. But it seems to defy logic that a top, needed for cold weather can only be erected when it's 60+ degrees. ?

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by ERA Chas

A. Why are your hood latches pointed forward with the hood closed?
B. I hate to say it but the beige looks like a stool sample under garage lights...
C. You're being very helpful to Dan. But it seems to defy logic that a top, needed for cold weather can only be erected when it's 60+ degrees. ?

A) I rarely latch the hood when it's in the garage. I tighten them before I take her out though as one of our local club members lost his hood on the highway by forgetting to latch.

B) Well, at least you hate saying it....

C) I could get it up in the cold, I think, but certainly not quickly. When AC was designing the original car I'm sure the top was the very last thing they thought of -- and it was barely more than an afterthought. There is zero chance I could get it up quickly with a thunder storm coming up on me (I keep a tarp in the trunk for that). To do a really nice job getting it up, so that it looks and fits perfectly, takes me about twenty minutes in the garage. Maybe a little longer if my thumbs start to go numb from the lift-a-dots.

[ERA2076]

Originally Posted by patrickt

A) .... one of our local club members lost his hood on the highway by forgetting to latch.

Is that possible? Very surprising.

chr

[DanEC]

Patrick - keep the installation tips coming. So, if I understand correctly, you put the front bows in the windshield slots and loosely secure them. Then you start with the center lift-a-dots - and this is before installing the bows? If I understood the earlier comment you assemble the bows, insert one side in the ferrell, and the pushing up on the center of the bows (and top) swing the other end around and get it inserted in the other ferrell?

And I still kind of like the color - just haven't warmed up to the rollbars yet. One reason I'm tackling my own top is that I don't have a roll bar to work around which will simplify things a little. Not sure it would make doing it myself a no-go, but it would definately add another dimension. But, I guess from recent polls I'm way into the rollbar minority - somewhere around having a death wish and having little regard for my wife/passenger safety.

ERA Chase - the relationship between the weather needed to install the top and the weather when you need the top, hasn't exactly escaped me. I figure the top either goes on, on a warm Fall day and stays on until Spring - or it will probably stay in the trunk while the car hibernates in the garage through the winter. Not sure yet - may vary from year to year.

Kevin - I would have figured ERA has a template they use to drill the stud holes. Surely they do, but it may have been revised a few times slightly over the years. I didn't record the stud to stud measurements but I did find two that had a 1/2 inch difference from side to side - and I assume there may be two more with a 1/2 inch difference the other way to get back on center towards the back??? As I mentioned there has been some change in the bows over the years according to Jack. My top is made by Robbins and I wonder if the pattern on it (or even the supplier) may have slightly changed over the years too? After doing the lift-a-dot tabs, and seeing how carefully they have to be installed, I would have to agree that using a top fitted to another car would be a real high risk.

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by ERA2076

Is that possible? Very surprising.

chr

Oops, sorry for missing your question. The car was not an ERA, SPF, CSX and I'm pretty sure it wasn't an FFR -- it was one of the "others." It flew off at normal highway speeds and he stopped and retrieved it. Since then there have been a couple of threads on here that came to the conclusion that different breeds of Cobra produce different air flows on the hoods -- some guys report no high speed problems at all with the hood unlatched.

[DanEC]

Chas - I know the top may not be a real useful feature down the road. As you have probably figured out, I like working on old cars and mastering their disassembly and reassembly. I do like driving my old cars but honestly, even here in Arkansas the roads are getting so crowded with idiot drivers that it's pretty stressful. The top is just one more thing that I can work on and see if I can manage to complete.

[ERA Chas]

Originally Posted by DanEC

Chas - I know the top may not be a real useful feature down the road. As you have probably figured out, I like working on old cars and mastering their disassembly and reassembly. .

I knew that Dan. And that's great.
For me, the joy was 50% working (building and better performance stuff), 50% driving. But when driving, I got 100% of its envelop much of the time.
It really does talk to you when you get a rhythm going.

[patrickt]

Well Dan, I'm here to tell you that, yes, you can have it both ways. You can fly up and down the roads, terrorize pedestrians, and flaunt our nation's traffic laws. Or, you can drive her to the track and run her there -- and, either way, still have a top in your trunk. Yep, just pull over, maybe under a covered overpass, and put that top up. Then, just crank up the heater and you'll be snug as a bug in a rug. Stop off at the Geezer Car Show and blow them out of their wheelchairs. What's not to like?

[DanEC]

My brother has suggested some changes for my car. He's not exactly a purist. What do you think?

[RodKnock]

Originally Posted by DanEC

My brother has suggested some changes for my car. He's not exactly a purist. What do you think?

Attachment 23445

I hope you're kidding around.

[patrickt]

Perhaps his real motivation is to make the car look worse so that he feels better about not having it for himself.