richyb66

Ok, the decorating in the dining room is finished and the lpg issue with the Audi is now (hopefully) sorted so I’m back running with the hardtop. As a quick refresher, I’d got the main panels rivetted in place to the framework so I made a start on tidying up the joins and smoothing the metalwork out. Firstly, I tack welded some of the corner joints in between the panels. It’s difficult to get the rivets close to the corners so a tack of weld should stop any movement between the pieces as the roof flexes. At the front of the roof, a soft disc was used on the angle grinder to smooth things out. I'll need to use a skim of filler here and there but it’ll be easy to get a good enough finish for the vinyl I’m planning to cover the roof with.

IVA manual is ambiguous using words like "adequate" rather than specifying values. As Bob says, start with 300mm for brake and fuel lines and then see if additional clips are needed anywhere in between to provide additional support. http://www.rhocar.org/index.php?showtopic=34047&&do=findComment&comment=256742

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Ford-Sierra-Ghia-Banger-Kit-Car-Drift-/221191329607?pt=Automobiles_UK&hash=item338007d747#ht_480wt_1269

Steve, no problem, the oil is in the back of my car.

Steve - DOHC spec I found was 10W/40 so 5W/30 might be a bit thin unless anyone can confirm otherwise but if you want to give it a try, just bring a can along. Gaz - I've got 5 litres set aside for you, no need to bring a can.

If anyone wants some FREE oil so they can do on oil change ready for the new season then they can get it from me on Wednesday. This is top quality 5W/30 Castrol oil so ok for Zetecs but not much use in a Pinto (which is why I don't need it). All you need to do is let me know on here and bring an empty can and I'll fill it up. Not sure exactly how much oil I've got but there's probably 20+ litres so enough to give 4 people a free oil change.

Shouldn't be much difference between a carb pinto and a carb crossflow. The connections might be in different places but most decent harnesses will have enough wire spare to allow re-routing.

You could build it up but due to it's tacky nature you might find dirt sticks to it. It's really suited for sealing smaller gaps rather than filling in big areas (say greater than 3mm). On my 2B I filled the gap between the bottom of the screen frame and the scuttle with a shaped black plastic sheet that was thick enough to fit in the groove along the bottom of the screen frame and then just sealed that to the scuttle with a small bead of black pu sealer.

Use some non setting Butyl rubber strip, easy to disassemble the parts at a later date. http://www.cbsonline.co.uk/product/Butyl_Sealer_Strip_7M_BUTYL Probably also available at a bodyshop / paint supplier.

Deffo a Toyota box, fitted in plenty of different cars. Looking at the state of the box and bellhousing compared to the tailshaft housing, maybe the tailshaft housing has been swapped to alter the gearlever position.

This weekend at Stoneleigh (same venue as the Kit Car Show) http://www.stoneleighpark.com/modules/events/event.aspx?id=56&title=race_retro_2013 http://www.raceretro.com/

Toyota W58 - probably from a '83 - '85 Celica or Supra but difficult to tell as different tail housings are available.

Take them to the IVA to be safe. I had mine on a laptop and also on my phone, the inspector was happy seeing the pictures on the phone. The initial photos you send to VOSA are only to confirm amateur build status - they're not concerned with the quality or suitability of the build at that stage.

Erm, I think I'll pass on that one. Apart from the obvious stuff like every 2B chassis is different and no 2 cars have the screen in the same place - laying up firbeglass is messy and smelly! However, if you're looking to get rich quick - I think this might still be available: http://www.rhocar.org/index.php?showtopic=27266

Someone will buy it, finish it and then just ring it.

Hopefully, I've not been to Stoneleigh for about 20 years so I'm due another visit.

Never again! I'm keeping a rough total of what it's costing and I'll post that when it's finished but I'm not remotely keeping track of how long it's taking because I'm not the fastest worker and taking it steady can often save doing jobs twice. I had a few options for the finish: 1.Leave it natural - this would mean a lot of metal finishing around the corners of the roof for it to look decent and not leak so this isn't an option unless I want to spend a lot more time sorting the finish and sealing all the rivets. 2.Paint it - this was a possibility but again I'd need to do a lot of prep to get a paint standard finish and I don't think a painted finish would be durable enough to take the knocks it will undoubtably get when the roof is removed and stored. 3. Vinyl wrap - similar to paint really, probably more durable but due to the size of the roof, I'd probably need to have it professionally fitted. 4. Vinyl material - this is currently looking favourite. It's durable, will hide surface imperfections well and I can trim the lower halves of the doors to match.

Inside the roof the joins between the individual panels look like this – 30mm wide strips of 1mm sheet with double rows of countersunk rivets. The protrusion of the rivets doesn't matter, they're nowhere where I'll bash my head and I plan to line the inside of the roof with carpet to keep the drumming down: A length of 10mm tube was added across the inside of the frame to provide additional support to the frame corners: The inside of the window frame had edging made so that a seal could be fitted, it was made from 4 corner pieces shaped like this so the seal can form the corner easily and 4 straight pieces in between the corners: Seal fits thus: At the top I need a pair of hinges. The window will be a piece of 3mm clear polycarbonate and I'll paint a blackout area around the edge of it so that the seal will be hidden and the visible opening will be rectangular with rounded corners: Swan neck hinges are needed to clear the seal. These were cut out of some I section ally extrusion I had lying around. This is the closed position: and here it is open: More pictures to follow……

Right, this should finally tidy things up a bit - the second half of my original post as it should have appeared: At this stage the frame was self-supporting so I could remove it and start marking out the 1mm ally that I’m using to cover it. The main bends at the side of the roof were formed around a length of 4" bog waste pipe and the smaller bend at the front was formed over some 20mm round bar. The front corners have a complex shape so will be made as separate pieces, so for now, the corners have been cut away completely so the 3 main bends can be made. Here’s one of the front corners. The shape was too tight to hand beat without putting a few cuts in so the piece was made as shown then welded and rivetted in place. The saw cuts will be tack welded and then skimmed with filler. There’s a massive amount of trial and error involved here so the panels were self tapped in place to allow for re-fitting. With the main roof area covered it was time to attack the rear pillars. I started with 2mm cardboard templates - £2-10 an A1 sheet from Hobbycraft but it bends nicely and it cheaper that ally when you make a cock up. Once again the sheet was former around the 4" bog pipe and I was looking for a shape that was nice and even with no nasty kinks. At the bottom of the pillars, the sheet was initially held with self tappers but in this picture you can just see that I have turned 2 areas back underneath on themselves so that they grip the 3x30 strip around the rear panel corner: With the main panels in place, a strip with a bend across it was added at the rear of the roof above the window. This gave me the final boundary so I could form the infills in the main roof corners. The shape is complex and I knew I wouldn’t be able to form it in a single piece so I started with the flattest part first: Basically just lots of clamping, marking and trimming and in it went. The remaining hole was filled in 2 pieces which were made from a rough card template which was transferred to ally sheet and cut 25mm oversize all round. These pieces were then had formed using a bossing mallet (Google it if you haven’t seen one) and a sand filled leather bag, together with steel panel beating hammers and blocks. I’m not an expert, it isn’t easy but if you’re determined (and I am). You end up with this: …and a few scrap ones as well. (Practice makes perfect). I’ve actually progressed quite a bit from this stage but need better photos so I’ll post more pictures later in the week. The hardtop will be removeable - the weight isn't an issue but it is a bit unwieldy to lift on my own but just about manageable.

I could fill a years magazines with hard top info. I've got another project on the go at the moment that I might hold back for the magazine.

I'm just hoping the hard top is more successful than my attemps to edit my image links.

I can get in and out but it's a bit tricky so I'll be getting another quick release wheel. I had one before but the quality wasn't brilliant and I was dubious regarding it's strength so I took it off - I'll have a look out for a better quality one later.

I keep getting this annoying message: "Sorry, but you have posted more images than you are allowed to" when I'm trying to edit the image links in my post in the BODYWORK section. I need to edit my inage links to add blah blah blah so the images appear in the thread rather than as hyperlinks. Is there a linit to the number of pictures you can put in a thread, or the number you can edit at one time? Very annoying!

I need to edit my image links so they appear as pictures in the post - currently it won't let me edit the links so I'll sort it out tomorrow am.

Right, here’s a quick rundown on my current project. For some time now I’ve had it in mind to sort out the issue of getting wet when I’m out for a run, caused by the combination of naff weather and no weather gear. I had made a basic Surrey top but to be honest, whilst it offers some protection while parked up, once you actually start moving it’s a waste of time. It’s also noisy as it flaps about so at some point in the future, I’ll make something similar, but better. My plan has been to make a hardtop and a pair of doors as this will offer much better protection than the standard weather gear and at a later date, I’ll make a MkII Surrey top to match the same doors and keep that in the boot for when I don’t want the hard top. Also, I like a challenge. So I’ll be making it from aluminium because I want it lightweight. The photos below are by no means exhaustive but they give a good idea what’s involved. First job was to make a template for the doors so I know where the roof has got to go. A template would also give me the chance to assess the visibility through the doors as the standard weather gear doors look like they obscure vision to the sides so I wanted something that would offer better all round visibility. A template was made from 6mm MDF and checked for fit on the car. At this stage I’m only bothered about how it looks in side profile, not how well it fits the contour of the body. ]http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u289/richyb66/145.jpg~original Once I was happy with the template, I started to make the roof frame around the top of the doors. I used 19mm square ally tube and this was bent to shape around a former that was made from 18mm chipboard using the MDF pattern as a template. To assist in bending the tube, some localised heat was applied with a blowlamp. A dummy top half door was cut out from hardboard and fitted to the screen pillars using lift-off hinges. This allowed me to decide where to door would be when it was closed as the clear part of the door needs to be a flat surface and I could position the curved tubes around the top of the doors as shown below. 　 In this photo you can see the two curved tubes roughly in position. They are joined at the front by an ally channel that fits over the top of the windscreen frame and this channel has 19mm round tube welded to it that curves down at either end. Across the top of the roll bar is more square tube that will clamp down to the roll bar and also help space the roof up a little over my head. This square tube was joined to the door frames with round tube bent to shape and was connected to the front screen area with 2 long angles about 30x30 like this: The two angles will help form a spine down the centre of the roof for strength and other features more of which later. At the back of the roof, more square tube was used as 2 pieces were bent to shape to support the back of the roof and also for a frame for the rear window: The frame was joined using a combination of rivetting and welding. I’ve used a normal home gas mig welder that’s been adapted to weld ally. This involves using Argon gas, swapping the metal torch liner for a PTFE one as ally snags in a steel liner, power setting on the lowest of the 4 available, wire speed on 9 (of 10), 1mm nozzle with 0.8mm wire (so the wire doesn’t snag if it expands) and finally and most importantly – keep the torch lead as straight as possible when welding. The thin ally wire bends easily and with the drive roller inside the welder, it’s pushing a meter of wire up to the torch. If the wire jams, by the time you’ve realised, you’ve got 2 feet of wire coiled up by the roller and this (and the meter in the torch lead) is scrap. I get a few of these happen but I’m used to it now . The other top tip with welding ally – IT NEEDS TO BE VERY CLEAN. So I use a emery to clean the oxide off it before I start welding. Finally, 2 strips of 30x3 bar were formed to shape to fit around the lower corners of the body. Due to the complex shape, they were cut down partially to 15mm wide where the majority of the form change was, to make them easier to bend and I also used more heat – I like heat. The strips don’t touch the body, they’re about 3mm clear so I can put a foam seal behind them later on. Underneath the ally sheet on the roof, you can just see another strip of 30x3 that I’ve fitted above the centre of the door. This was bent to the profile I wanted on the roof and would help support the roof. Here are the supports from underneath and see also the cross braces between the centre spine. I will box in the underneath of the spine and it will contain interior lights. I’m also worried about heat build up with the roof fitted so the outside of the roof will have a scoop on it to duct air into the box section. The bottom of the section will then have a pair of closeable vents fitted in it so I can direct some fresh air into the cabin. At the back of the roof, a couple of horizontal boxes were added to form the top and bottom of the rear window frame.