Progress on #782

[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.

[DanEC]

Well - round 2 (or 3) of fitting the roadster top is done. I stood back and looked at the top and realized it seemed to be a bit loose at the top of the curves of the main bows. After thinking about it I realized the radius of the main bow was tighter than the top was sewn, creating some looseness at the top. So, I took it off and opened up the radius of the curve on the main bow which also raised it and inch or so in the middle. After re-installing I found it fits much better. The difference is probably hard to see in photos but it took a good bit of the slack out on the very top and over the sidecurtains. In the end the radius on the main bow was too tight and the radius on the rear bow was too large. I forget if it was 1795 or Cscobra who said earlier that the bows have to be bent to fit the top.



Next I went to work on the sidecurtains to modify them to tuck into the top recess better. I drilled out two pop rivets securing the top piece to the bottom track at the rear. I also drilled out the rivet securing the middle upright at the top so I could remove the sliding pane. I then cut about 3/8 inch off of the upper frame at the rear on the driver side and 1/4 inch off of the passenger side.



This got more involved than I expected because the sliding pane was too tall to fit after trimming the heigth at the back. So I had to grind and sand an amount off the top of the plexiglass to fit and polish the edge. Also the loose flap of vinyl at the rear bottom had to be re-sewn to shorten it to match and re-glued to the aluminum. Then I re-riveted everything back together with black finished pop rivets. They fit much better now.





I took my wife for her first ride and top stayed on up to 50 mph fine - no flapping but it started to get pretty noisy at that speed. It's kind of claustraphobic inside but I'm pretty satisfied now.





If anyone needs any black finished rivets to work on their sidecurtains, let me know and I'll send you a few. I had to order a 250 box from McMasters.

Feb 18, 2015 - Editing to add some lessons-learned after living with my self-installed top for a year.

Tip #1 - placement of lift-a-dot tabs on top. I placed my first tab in the corners at a 45 degree angle because I rationalized it would be getting tension in that direction from the rear bow - not necessary. But, the first tab does need to go as far forward and as far down on the edge of the top. I would run the edge of the tab up under the edge welting on the top to get it as far forward and out as possible. Here is a picture of mine and you can see that I could have installed it closer to the edge if I had installed it straight up and down.



Every fraction of an inch is important when installing the tabs to the rear and you need as much material as possible above this tab to allow the side curtains to fit into the top opening.

Tip #2 - Jack at ERA gave me some tips on installing the tabs which I generally followed - however we didn't get down to mapping where each LAD tab went. The second tab needs to pretty much in the middle of the material strip along the bottom of the top and then each next one move a little further out than the previous one. I think Jack had me move it in a little too much but then each sewn top is probably a little different. And then I didn't step out quite fast enough and as a consequence my top is very tight across the rear snaps and in the corners at the #5 tab from the doors.



At least with my top I should have stepped the #3 and #4 tabs further out and stepped them out quicker with the #5 tab right on the edge of the edge welting.



The consequence of this is that I slightly shorted myself of material to stretch to the middle for the rearmost tabs, as well as a little material for more top heigth which is probably why I had to modify my side curtains a little to fit in the openings.

Here is a sketch of how I wish I had positioned the first 5 LAD tabs on my top. It wouldn't have been much difference but a 1/4 inch here or there might have made things a little easier.



Tip #3 - As covered above don't assume the bows are bent anywhere to proper shape when you start. I spent hours re-shaping mine and they may still not be perfect. My main bow was bent too tight of a radius and for too low of a top height. The top seemed tight because it was being stretched tightly side to side, but the bow didn't seem to fill out the radius in the top well and was a little loose up there. After re-bending the radius to open it up considerably, which also increased it's height and brought the sides in, it fit the top material and filled it out much better. It's important to figure this out before cutting material off the bow joint because it's difficult to get it snapped down. I would lay my bows down on a sheet of newspaper and trace it's outline with a felt marker to have a pattern to monitor where I was while re-bending it. The pattern also helped me to bend the right and left bows to match. Pictures of where I ended up - may not be perfect but OK I think.





Tip #4 - As mentioned earlier, Jack made me aware that the main bow has to be shaped to bend to the front to fit the pleat in the top and also to bring the rear edge of the side openings forward to meet the back edge of the side curtains. Depending on it you bend the bow right above the ferrel, or at the connection for the rear bow, or bend it partly at both will influence how the top fits. I bent my bows partly above the ferrel and partly above the joint with the rear bow. Seems to have worked out OK since the top fits the rear of my sidecurtains pretty well. The ferrel supports for the main bow can be bent without a great effort so it's a good idea to use a level on both sides to see if they are at least bent uniformally. My driver side one needed to be twisted a little forward at the top to match the other side. If you only need a small amount of movement in the main bow to line up with the pleat in the top material, this is one way to get it.

Tip #5 - My side curtains are fit where they are quite a bit inside the windshield frame at the top. They lightly rest against the front windshield bow at the top and I've wrapped some self-adhesive felt around those areas to prevent rattlings and rubbing.



I honestly don't know if they should be this far in or not in ERA's opinion. But, doing so lines the rear up to match the lines of the top real well as shown in this shot with the door slightly open.



And this shot with the door closed.



This probably goes hand in hand with shaping the main bow - if the side curtains are set to where they are not as far inside the windshield at the top as on mine - you may need to bend your main bow to come out to the side a little more, which will probably bring the overall height down a little to compensate. One thing influences another.

Tip #6 - I noticed this winter that my top seems to be pulling the frame center up on the windshield glass. I did not notice this last year and I think I would have. I backed my adjustments down on the main bow which helped a little but the frame is still pulled up a little. I may have stretched the top over the front bow a little too tight when I first taped it down. The material needs to be carefully centered when positioned over the front bow and needs to have the slack pulled out of it but you don't need to really tension it greatly. If it ends up with just a bit of slack that is what the main bow adjusters can take care of.

[patrickt]

I give you an A+.

[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

[DanEC]

Originally Posted by 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

Kevin - yes, after sweating over getting the lift-a-dots generally in the right place, tweaking and working over the bows to fit the top seems to be the main ingrediant for success. When you get ready to do yours, let me know. It's definately do-able but there's a lot of tweaking to do.

Originally Posted by patrickt

I give you an A+.

Allright A+ - however, your grading scale may be slightly inflated. A couple lift-a-dots could have been slightly better located and my rear bow straps have an extra hole punched in them before I figured out the gap under the fabric where the snap base should go. Maybe an A for effort.

[kevins2]

Originally Posted by DanEC

Kevin - yes, after sweating over getting the lift-a-dots generally in the right place, tweaking and working over the bows to fit the top seems to be the main ingrediant for success. When you get ready to do yours, let me know. It's definately do-able but there's a lot of tweaking to do.

OK, thanks. I'll get the guest room ready.

[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

[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]

After a morning spin I'm up to a whole 42 miles on the odometer now. However, I noticed one of my turn signals didn't seem to be working and upon checking the lights when I got home I realized I don't have any lights of any kind in the rear. So, I will have to trouble shoot that before I venture out again. Except for crawling in and out from under it, I've become a fan of the convertible top. It was quite comfy on my 60 deg drive this morning. Since the windshield mounted side mirror won't cooperate with the vent wing and the side curtains all together - I have to do a lot of neck swiveling and peering out under the side of the top to check traffic. But otherwise it is pretty decent.

[patrickt]

Check those pesky fast blow fuses on the steering column. If they haven't blown, check to see if you're getting a +12v feed to them.

[DanEC]

Originally Posted by patrickt

Check those pesky fast blow fuses on the steering column. If they haven't blown, check to see if you're getting a +12v feed to them.

I will. It's probably going to be Monday before I can look at it. It could be something as simple as a ground I didn't put back when I installed the trunk carpet or the connector to the rear wire harness. Or maybe it's that ground stap I lack from the engine to the frame.

Dan

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by DanEC

I will. It's probably going to be Monday before I can look at it. It could be something as simple as a ground I didn't put back when I installed the trunk carpet or the connector to the rear wire harness. Or maybe it's that ground stap I lack from the engine to the frame.

Dan

Have they ever worked?