Jazzman’s #8745 "Flip Top" Build

[Jazzman]

After five or six or seven (I lost count!!) layers of glass, the flange around the body is done. I had a minor problem with one of the layers, had a bit of unexpected separation between layers. I cut out the separated layer, sanded it down smooth, and laid another two or three layers on top of it. The rest came out fine. I rough trimmed the flange just to clean it up, and here's how it ended up.





With the help of the usual suspects (my kids, their friends) we put the entire body/hood unit on to the frame. (I had to spend an hour and a half cleaning the first six layers of sanding dust. I really have got to remember to cover that thing!!)



It slid on alright, but I could tell that there were some issues that would have to be resolved. The PS just fit, but the alignment "Fangs" are pretty close to the footbox wall.





Getting the hood separated from the body was pretty easy, but not in the way I expected. I had hoped that the resin would not stick to the somewhat waxy back of the blue painters tape and would separate with a little bit of encouragement. Note to self: resin sticks quite well to painters tape. Second note to self: it doesn't stick well at all to aluminum. Not that this information helps me much at all in this situation, but it occurred to me when the aluminum "band aids" popped right off. It turned out that the "camper seal" that I used to create the setback doesn't stick hardly all! I unbolted all the "band aids", unbolted the "Fangs", and with just a bit of pressure, the hood separated cleanly from the "camper seal".



The camper seal pulled right off the blue painters tape (it's not sticky on that side, it's barely sticky on the sticky side!!). The blue tape, however, is stuck securely to the resin flange. I am going to have to do a lot of sanding to get all that tape off the flange. Oh well, live and learn!

[Jazzman]

I also discovered that the body rib was a bit too thick to let the body slide down fully on to the frame. I had to take a sander and sand a notch into that new rib to allow the body to settle just a bit lower.





The real problems begin on the Drivers side. That nice little popped out side panel that FFR was kind enough to design is causing some space issues. First, the angle aluminum for the Fangs is too wide to fit between the body side and the DS footbox outside panel.



The DS hood rib also hits the popped out side of the DS footbox panel.



Finally, the popped out area does not allow any space for the upper half of the "Fangs" to slide by as the hood closes. I decide that before I make any changes or adjustments, I would look at it, think about it, sleep on it. I have some ideas, but I want to be sure before I move forward.

I spent the rest of the day polishing and prepping pieces of the hood hinge system and the trusses to be sent off to the powdercoater. Its still slow because the air compressor is significantly underpowered for the task. It's getting done slowly, but it's coming out nice.

[wareaglescott]

Good progress! Nice to see it back on the frame and now you know what kinks need worked out.

[carlewms]

The foam board is Divinylcell H45 PVC Foam Board, 1" thick, from Aircraft Spruce, part #01-12800. It comes in several sizes, I bought the 32" x 48" sheet. it is quite solid, but light. It is easily shaped with 100 grit sandpaper. It soaks up a bunch of resin when you lay the first layer of glass over it. Hope this helps!

Thanks.

[Jazzman]

So what is this?



That is the pile of parts that was the Flip Top Hinge system. I took it all apart, every last bolt and nut, to send all the parts off to the powder coater. Very efficient of me, right? Wrong!! 2BKing very wisely suggested that I should completely install the entire hood system, get it all adjusted and working properly, before I powder coat anything. He is, of course, right. There are likely to be a few minor adjustments to get everything to work properly. Sooooooo . . . back together it all goes.



The good news is it took me dramatically less time to reassemble than it did to assemble it the first time. By the time I disassemble and reassemble it a third time, I should be able to fly through it!

I then opened up the garage, let the 106 or so degree air wash over me, and began sanding on the flanges where the hood and body meet. First lesson of the day: Do not use blue painters tape and expect it to peel away from vinylester resin. The resin soaks into the tape, and the tape becomes part of the fiberglass. I spent quite a lot of time sanding all the tape off the body flange. It's not an easy place to sand. After a lot of work, the flange was clear. The edge where the original body meets the new flange glass had just a bit of a valley, so I carefully filled in the valley with HSRF. The green you see in the photos is HSRF. It has not yet been sanded down.

[WIS89]

Kevin-

I really admire your work, and have been enjoying following along! I may have said it before, but I really admire those who can take a saw to these cars, and make something awesome all their own.

Thank you for sharing your progress with us; awesome!

I look forward to seeing the rest of your progress!

Regards,

Steve

[UnhipPopano]

There are both TV commercials and written explanation on how Painters Tape works. The edges soak up the paint. This is good for painting, but not for what you are trying to do.

[Jazzman]

Many of you will relate to my lack of posts over the past week. I am at that age when I have just launched my kids, and it is time to begin taking care of my parents. This past weekend, both my parents ended up in two different emergency rooms over a three day period. Thankfully, both are out now, and on the mend, albeit slowly. Overlay a short out of town business trip, and you can understand why my posts have been non-existent. I have made a small amount of progress, however.

After turning the body right side up, I spent a lot of time over several nights sanding the upper flange smooth. This should have been a simple process, but it highlighted the serious limitations of my RO Palm sander. The tool is simply not up to the task. I have spent a couple of days deciding whether to buy an electric or pneumatic DA Sander. If I decide upon a pneumatic one, I have really got to bite the bullet and buy a really large and powerful compressor. No decision on this yet. Still researching. I have pretty much decided that while I can buy a large used compressor much more inexpensively, the chore of moving it and the lack of warranty may outweigh the cost savings. My wife says buy a new one. Who am I to argue!! I sanded the upper flange smooth on all sides and sculpting the rolled over edge. I ground down the original body through the red gelcoat to provide good adhesion for the glass and resin, and to provide a small valley so that it did not become too thick in that area. I began laying glass from the top down, laying glass in about 12" pieces. This is one of the most complex set of curves I have had to deal with, especially each end where I am building the transition from the upper body flange to the thinner side flange. This are had curves going every direction simultaneously. Here is how it looked after one coat:





And here is how it looks after two layers of glass, and a spill of about 30% of the mix on the body:



While I had a bit of extra resin mixed up, I decided to lay another layer on the top of the hood at the rear of the joint. That area got a bit thin, so I need to build it up a bit. This is one layer, but there will likely be 4 or more done in this area.





Jeff Kleiner is a genius! He told me to get a pool noodle and use it to sand the concave areas along hood. Here's my "sanding noodle": (theres still a lot more in the closet to use later if necessary!!)



After just a short amount of sanding, the value of this tool became crystal clear. It helped me sand the previously layers of glass in preparation for one last layer to tie it all together.



After a bit more sanding on the front edge of the hood seams, it also became clear that there were still some low areas that will need to be glassed in. I marked them on the body to both help you see them and help me eliminate them.

[Jazzman]

I did a bit of metal working as well. I am going to have to modify the "fangs" and their mounting brackets. I began with the "easy" one, the passenger side. All that is required here is to notch about 1/4" out of the mounting brackets in the area that the PS footbox will be. If I had chosen to use 1" angle aluminum instead of 1.25" material, this process would not have been necessary. If you choose to follow in my footsteps, use 1" material.



I then returned to my old friends, the hood trusses. The one piece I did not install when they were originally manufactured was the piece that will hold the ball ends that will be attached to the pneumatic struts to hold the hood up when open. When 2BKing originally designed the trusses, he cut out large sections of the square channel to reduce weight. Being a rugged individualist (and not having access to a metal cutting band saw) I decided to retain the full 3/4" square channel all around. I like the look, but it did cause a couple of access issues. This turned out to be one of them.

I drilled the hole that the ball end bolt will go through from the inside to the outside of the truss:



I then drilled the largest hole that would fit inside the walls of the 3/4" square tube from the outside of the truss. I had to do this because the threaded bolt of the ball end piece is too short to go all the way through the 3/4" tube. 2BKing didn't need to do this because he had bisected the 3/4" square tube to allow access from the back side.



I carefully checked to be sure all the parts would fit through their respective holes. I did not install them, because once they go on, I will never have decent access to get them back off. The nut will be buried inside the 3/4" tube. This part will have to go off to powder coating before that piece is installed.

[RHITME03]

Jazzman - Great work. Glad to hear your family is on the mend. I truly look forward to following your build, both for content of information and the unique aspects incorporated into your roadster. Keep it up!

[Jeff Kleiner]

Kevin,
Got your PMs and wrote up a reply but for some reason the a new firewall won't let me send it through my office computer??? I'll send it from home this evening.

Looking great!

Jeff

[Jazzman]

Didn't get much done yesterday, but it was an exciting day . . . if you live in a desert! We got rain!! Lots of it!!



Anytime we get rain, it really is a great day, but this one was really strange. Overnight it was in the mid 90's, in the middle of the storm at about 10am it got down to 74 degrees. After about three hours of rain, and the power being out for most of that time, the sun came out, the humidity came on, and by the late afternoon is was a steamy 97 degrees. Now that's a storm!

Since the power was out, I couldn't work, so I went to the shop to see if I could do anything. I spent part of that time smoothing out the fiberglass seam on the hood. After laying up quite a number of layers, I wanted to lay one final layer of glass all the way across all the layers to tie them all together and smooth out the whole area. Before this final layer could be laid, I had to smooth out all the previous layers. Good old fashioned block sanding. Slow, boring, hard work, but somehow satisfying in the end.

Today I continued the same project. Spent more time sanding everything as smooth and feathered as I could. I still found I had a couple of low areas that just were not going get any better with just glass. I very carefully smoothed over a layer of HSRF. Heeding Jeff Kleiners wise counsel, I laid it as smoothly as I was able, and with one small exception, did not leave any excess material to be sanded off.





The HSRF takes about 20 minutes to get generally hard, but I like to wait 30-45 minutes for it to really get hard before I start shaping it. I got dinner, took a swim, talk to my bride, and watched the Olympics. I went back to find the HSRF nicely set up and ready to go. Then I sanded. And I sanded. And I sanded some more. I changed sand paper, then continued the same process. Not much to look at, but It really is coming together nicely.



I re-sanded everything, and then laid one last layer of fiberglass over the entire area, overlapping all other layers by about 1.5". This layer was 7" wide, the widest layer I have laid. I just barely mixed enough Vinylester resin to lay the entire layer, but I did just make it. I wish you could really see how nice this layer came out. It smoothly transitions all the various layers together and creates one nice smooth curve. The edges will have to feathered in, of course, but the rest of the area will only need limited smoothing, much less than was going to be required before laying this layer.

[GoDadGo]

Hey Jazzman,

You are doing nice glass work and I speak from experience on that subject.
In a past life I built fiberglass boats and still have a fishing skiff mold that I just couldn't part with.
Anyway, enjoy the itch and wiping down with vinegar does help with that fun aspect of doing this type of work.

Steve

[Jazzman]

You can always trust Dad . . . in this case GoDadGo! Thanks for the compliment, but thanks most of all for the suggestion with the vinegar. The itch hasn't been too bad thus far, but last night I guess I really got a lot of dust on me. I itched all night! I just tried your vinegar remedy, and I am sooooo much better now! Of course now I smell like a salad . . .

[WIS89]

I wish I had known about that vinegar solution myself! It is now filed away for future use.

Thanks Steve, and Kevin your work is awesome as always. Sounds like that storm could have been quite dangerous!

Regards,

Steve

[2FAST4U]

This is truly an incredible build. Well done!!

[Jazzman]

Thanks 2FAST, that is truly high praise coming from you. I have enjoyed, learned from, and stolen ideas from your work. I continue to stand on the shoulders of giants!

[Jazzman]

I spent almost a full day this past weekend cleaning the mess created by the fiberglass sanding process. I decided that I must take the time to move all those items that I wanted to keep clean into a "clean area". I decided to take the third bay of my garage and move everything I could into that area. Then I used 6mil plastic sheeting, about a dozen 5 gallon paint stiring sticks (that I got free from Home Depot!!) and the help of my bride to put up a temporary wall.



It really works well, keeps dust off of most of the tools, and best of all, redirects the cold air from my air conditioner into the double car bay where my car now sits. It took time away from the build, but I think it was well worth the time.

While I was working with plastic sheeting, I decided to cover the back half of the car with 3mil plastic drop cloth. I am putting the body on, and I know I will be kicking up a lot of sanding dust. At least this portion of the car will be kept clean. This alone will save a lot of clean up time.



Again with the help of my bride, we reinstalled the body onto the frame. She is getting really good at it now. With just a small amount of drama, I got the body back into place, fixed the rear in place with two bolts, then screwed the sides into the reference holes that I am using. At the moment I am only using two screws on each side to hold the body in place. I keeps it straight, but doesn't slow down the removal process.

I turned to the hood section. The reason for all this re-installation of parts is to fit the hood and body together, adjusting the necessary parts to be sure that the tilt system works and everything fits together well. One thing that I had not addressed up to this point was the separation of the layers of the hood where the scoop hole has been cut out.



I pulled out the 3m panel bonding cement and the special mixing and delivery tool.



After squeezing an ample amount of the panel bonding cement between the separated layers, I held the layers together with paper clamps from my office until the cement hardened.



It worked great. The hood is much more stiff than it was before bonding these layers together. The one minor problem was that some of the cement squeezed out of the seam and stuck a few of the paper clamps to the hood. It took some force, and a screwdriver, to separate the last of the paper clamps. A bit of sanding around the edges, and that little project will be done.

[Jazzman]

It was time to cut out the side vents on the hood. FFR drew them on, but I wanted to double and triple check their location and size. I began measuring their location using a large square. I was pleased to find out that the markings from FFR actually were quite accurate, and matched on both sides.



I found that the front of the opening is 9" from the top of the curve of the body, and the rear was 9 3/8". When they are all marked and the holes for the corners were drilled, I cut out the openings.



In hindsight, I wish that I had cut these openings before I drew and cut the curve of the body/hood separation. As it turned out, all the measuring and triple checking paid off. The distance from the bottom of the side vent the separation from the body is a consistent 4 5/8". It is always dangerous to get too cocky, but after all the measuring and dealing with curves, it is nice to know that the result came in almost exactly where it should be.



Note for those considering attempting the Tilt Front project: It would have been easier to lay in a nice straight dependable line based upon the line of the bottom of the side vent. This line 4 5/8" below the bottom of the vent could be drawn in at the beginning of the design process. This would provide another fixed point, perhaps making the design process a bit easier.

I worked on reinstalling the trusses into the hood. I still need to re-make four of the mounting pieces that join truss to the hood. The very front of the hood is somewhat different than the plans, and I will have to custom make some mounting pieces. Its not too hard, just time consuming. That is a project for tomorrow.



The perforated mounting points that had been attached to the body worked very well. Everything went back together rather smoothly until . . . one of the bolts from the perforated plate was twisted out of the perforated plate. Arrgh! Now when I remove the trusses again for powdercoating, I will have to dig out and remove the perforated plate and install a new one. Oh well, it's fixable.

[wareaglescott]

Good idea on the office clamps. Nice when you can use something from home for a non intended purpose instead of buying something new! Build is looking great!

[WIS89]

I totally would have used the opportunity to buy some new tools! HA

It still looks great, and I still admire your work.

Regards,

Steve

[Jazzman]

Tonight my bride and I attached the hood for the first time. Here is a short video of the first opening:

https://youtu.be/Vp0GoXKAboE

So there you have it. It actually does tilt. That's the good news. The bad news is there is a LOT Of adjustments that I have to figure out how do.

Here is a still of the Flipped Top in case you want to look at it more closely.



To get to this point, I had to do some adjusting of my original design. the angle aluminum that holds the Fangs had to be notched on the drivers side. Both upper and lower pieces got notched significantly. The third fang had to be removed on the DS. There simply was no way to make it slide by the pushed out area of the DS footbox outside panel. I also removed the third fang on the PS. My OCD will not allow them to not be symmetrical. It is actually ok, though. I actually think it looks better with two fangs on each side rather than three. I think there is a significant possibility that I will ultimately re-make these parts to incorporate my newest modifications and add some other things that I think would help retain rigidity.



Now the real challenges begin: adjusting everything to make it all both work right and fit right. That may prove to be a very big challenge. I have become increasingly concerned that the hood may have changed shape after it was separated from the body. I put the hood in the hot Arizona sun to bake the fiberglass layers. It worked very well. However I fear that this also allowed the hood to relax and change shape when it was not affixed to the body to help it retain its shape. Now I have some significant areas that will need work and adjustment.





I know that part of the problem is that the nose of the hood is currently sitting at least 1/2"-1" lower than it should be. When I originally did all the truss work, I had the front of the hood supported on the upper mounting bolts that held the body on the frame when it was delivered. with the nose low, the seams are farther apart. The photos clearly show the increased width of the seams that are quite evident along the top and sides. I have some ideas for adjusting this problem, but I am going to sleep on it.

Tomorrow morning I will put the entire car in the hot sun to relax the hood again to see if it will relax back into the shape it is supposed to be. More to follow tomorrow.

[wareaglescott]

Good work Kevin. I enjoyed seeing it in action in the video.
I know it is early in the process but I can only assume this will be a push button electrically activated and hydraulically actuated system. Surely you won't have to actually use your hands to open the hood!! Haha ��

[Jazzman]

A slow but productive day of adjustment. I had to figure out why the hood and body did not fit together the way they did when they were off the frame. I had excessively large seams and the sides bowed outward. I released the tension on the trusses and the hinges by loosening all the nuts that hold the hood to the trusses and the trusses to the hinges. because of the oblong nature of a number of the holes, there was a nice stress release as all the parts settled into a more comfortable position. I tightened everything up, but it made almost no change. My initial observation was that the nose of the hood was too low, and perhaps it is just a bit. This is the first time that the full weight of the hood is resting on the hinges. Previously the nose of the hood had been supported by the front bolts that FFR used to transport the entire kit. I realized that there was one other option: the body could also be too high. I had previously notched the rib at the front of the body where it passes over the upper 3/4" frame rails. Here is what it looked like:





After looking at all other alternatives, and reviewing my early photos, I decided that the fact that the body was being held up by the excessively thick rib might be causing my fitment problems. I decided to substantially increase the size of the notched to provide ample room for the body to move lower.





The notched area is a full 3/8" deep. It allowed the body to slip down to a more normal position. Immediately the hood mated with the body much more closely. Seams are much closer to correct and the sides are much closer to mating up. I then turned my attention to the other rib that might be conflicting with the frame, the side rib on the DS of the hood. I determined that this rib was also keeping the hood from lining up correctly with the body. I notched it in similar fashion.





Before I cut the body apart, I drew a centerline as a point of reference. I am so glad that I did. It has helped to show me how close a particular change gets me to the way it was BC, Before Cut. With the work today, I am very close to having it aligned again.



There is still more work to be done to make the hood move consistently, but I am pleased with the progress. 2BKing has designed in one additional feature to stiffen and provide adjustability to control where the hood goes as it closes. I am waiting on one small part for that setup, and hope to install it tomorrow. I am also trying to decide if I should do one more Fang at the very center of the hood edge that intersects the body. I will do this if it seems necessary to have a fixed point that consistently centers the hood and the top of the body. I am going to wait to decide if this is necessary until after I install the latches on the sides of the hood. I want to see how much effect the latches will have to hold everything exactly where it is supposed to be. FFR is currently out of stock on the latches, so I will have to wait to be able to make this determination.

[WIS89]

Kevin-

Nicely done! That centerline was a really good idea, and trying to recreate it after the fact may have proved to be impossible.

Very impressed with your progress and skills!

Regards,

Steve

[Jazzman]

In order to keep the hood from moving from side to side, 2BKing engineered a set of watts links and tie rods that significantly stiffens the hinge system. I began by laying out the parts I would need before I climbed under the car to install them.



I will tell you right off the bat that there is something missing from this photo, a part I did not install. But I promised that I would be completely honest with you, even in my mistakes. So here we go through the process. Take a look at the apex of each of the "L" shaped pieces in the photo above. That hole is the pivot point. Inside that hole is a brass ferrule that has been filed down to be just slightly thicker than the aluminum "L" piece. Now in the center of that ferrule is supposed to be a piece of stainless steel rod that is actually what the "L" pivots on. That little detail, however, eluded me until I had a conversation with King after I had already done the next few steps. Since I didn't remember that there was supposed to be the stainless steel pivot rod in the middle, I just assumed that I had ordered the wrong size bolts to fit in the center of the ferrules. So I searched my ridiculously large collection of bolts and nuts and found two that looked like they would work just fine. They were not threaded in the area that the "L" should pivot, and were long enough to allow a lock washer and nut on the other side. I collected all this hardware and climbed under the car.

I immediately noticed that the holes in the tilt framework were too small for the new bolts that I had just found. Did I go read Kings instructions? Did I check my parts list to see if I ordered the wrong part? Did I check the schematics that King sent to see if I had drilled the wrong size hole? No, No, and No. I just drilled out the hole to accommodate the larger, and wrong, bolt.



I bolted in both of the mated pair of "L" pieces:



I got the rods together and the other end fittings that King had designed.



I installed the outside ends of the watts link system as King had specified.



However, I discovered that when I opened the hood, the rod with the watts link on each end hit the lower 3/4" frame tube. To provide just enough space for it all to clear safely, I added a 1/2" spacer to lower the watts link at the outside end.



Now that the watts link system is fully hooked up, the hood has almost no lateral movement at all. The watts link system really works well. However, even though there is not supposed to be much movement in the mated pair of "L" brackets, they are supposed to be able to pivot. With the wrong bolt at the pivot point, and no stainless steel rod on which the "L" piece can pivot, they just don't pivot enough. Since I overdrilled the attachement holes for the "L" pieces, I am now going to have to re-make the 3/4" square channel piece that hold's the "L" pieces. At least I will have the opportunity to get the mated pair of "L" pieces fully connected by drilling the holes just a small amount closer together. That is a project for another day.

King warned me that I might have to trim the lowest edge of the hood below the large oval opening in the nose so that it would not hit the watts links and mated "L" pair. in my particular case, there was no need to trim the edge of the hood. It never hit anything unless you chose to over extend it's opening capabilities. The way the hinges rotate the hood as it opens makes it avoid these pieces. This is something to watch out for, however, if you choose to do this mod.

Now on to the support struts.

[Jazzman]

In King's wisdom, he re-purposed several of the original parts from the FFR kit. The use of the gas struts to assist and control the opening of the hood is one of these parts. I first did the easy part, installing the ball end fitting in the hole on the hinge that was originally designed by FFR to do just this. These ball end bolts are installed toward the outside of the car.



Installing the other end is a bit more tricky. The nut for the other ball end fitting ends up inside the 3/4" channel in the struts. I had to get creative to get the nut installed.





The ball ends face the center of the car. I tightened them by putting a large flat blade screwdriver into the hole and jamming the nut against the inside wall of the 3/4" truss.



Installing the gas struts was a simple snap on procedure. The hood is now controlled and limited by the gas struts.

[Jazzman]

In just two days and one evening, I have been able to fully mount and adjust the tilt mechanism. King told me he looked back and I have been working on the tilt system for about four months. (I haven't looked!!) He had anticipated that it would add about six months to the build. Now that I am on the tail end of that phase, I believe that a more experienced fabricator, or someone that had the time and motivation to work on it in a more intense fashion, this phase could be done in much less time. I am also even more convinced that even the novice fabricator, if well motivated and supplied with simple but adequate tools, can do this project. I am not an expert fabricator by any measure. But I am very pleased with how it all came together. It is a testament to the quality of the engineering that 2BKing has done. Just in case I haven't publically said it often enough, THANK YOU, KING, for all your support and assistance! I will now go back through all my notes and write up one complete set of instructions for this modification.

If you are considering trying this modification, contact 2BKing via private message. It has been our goal from the beginning of my Tilt Front construction process to provide King a complete set of instructions, photos, and schematics that he can provide to other interested builders.

I add the following photos as one more milestone along this journey to create my own vision of the Roadster. I'm glad I am not done, but it is quite satisfying to arrive at this point.

[David Hodgkins]

Amazing.

[Jazzman]

Amazing.

Thank you for the high compliment, but No, my friend, the magic that you have wrought in "Trojan" and your own MKIII is truly "Amazing". I really hope that I will get to see your MKIII before you sell it. I am however, hoping that it will sell quickly and at a very substantial profit for you. The buyer of your car will truly get a car that has been loved and taken care of extremely well. How very rare to have a complete documented history of all the items that were checked and re-checked before purchase, and photos of all the special things that you have done. To even be recognized by a master such as yourself is extremely high praise. Thank you for allowing me and all of us to learn from and be inspired by your craftsmanship and attention to detail.

[Gromit]

Absolutely an amazing build I've been lurking in awe. I hope when I get the chance to build one of these the I have the patience to take a four month detour to make it exactly the car I want. You are an inspiration to future builders
Chris aka Gromit

[Jazzman]

Thank you, Chris, for your kind words. I was just like you for several years. I truly hope you get the opportunity to build the car of YOUR dreams. It is an amazing journey of challenges, learning, and self discovery. Stick around, I'm not done yet!! I still have a lot more learning opportunities!

[WIS89]

Kevin-

I think you and King make a great team! He made a great kit, and you did an amazing job making it come to life! I echo the others here that compliment you on your fine work.

I know I have said it before, but I really admire your work! It really looks awesome, and I can't wait to see what comes next.

Thanks for letting us share the ride!

Regards,

Steve

[dallas_]

That's fantastic. Really well done. You will love the access that the tilt front gives you.

[Jazzman]

A lot of work and a lengthy business trip have conspired to keep me from doing what I want to do. At least while I was gone a box from FFR arrived with new toys! The good news is that the hood latches from a 65 Coupe arrived.



The bad news is that they are a lot deeper than I expected. I expected space to be tight on the drivers side, but it looks like there will be space issues on the PS too, perhaps more so than on the DS. To make it even more confusing, the small "ears" on the left an right sit proud of the front of the chrome latch handle which should be flush with the outside of the body. I am not sure exactly what these latches are attached to on the Coupe, but clearly it must not be just the inside of the body. At the moment I am thinking that I will either have to hammer those "ears" flat, or I will have to cut them off and find another way to attach the latches. I think I have that worked out, but I still am not sure there is enough space between the footbox wall and the inside of the hood.

The good news is that FFR was kind enough to include the latch U bolts. I am not sure if they are Stainless steel or regular steel that has been brushed, but I appreciated the extra items.



The bad news is that they are not threaded far enough up the shafts to be able to get them close enough to the footbox panels to allow everything to fit. The good news is that I have a die the right size to thread them.



The bad news is that the threading handle I have is a two handled variety, and won't work to go around a U bolt.

Ok. Any suggestions of How I thread a potentially stainless steel U bolt without a handle?

This one is going to take a lot of thinking. The two different heights of the outside panels of the foot boxes requires that each side will have to have it's own unique solution. Hmmm . . .

[carlewms]

Interesting dilemma ... Here is one approach (not very sophisticated) to consider:

1. Grind two flats on to the die 180 deg apart sufficient to allow a large wrench or vice grips to grip the die;
2. Mount the U bolt in a vice so it will not move;
3. Use lots of oil; and,
4. Use a large wrench or vice grips to slowly turn the die.

Another possibility:

I have not used these but YouTube has video of a ratcheting tools to drive the die:




Carl

[carlewms]

Here is another alternative ratcheting tool ..



You still might not have room for the tool head in this case

[Jeff Kleiner]

Option B; find a pair of different length square U bolts. Grainger, McMaster-Carr, Fastenall, etc. have lots of choices. Here's a quickie I just pulled up; as you'll see you can search based on thread diameter & pitch, length, width and thread width.

https://www.grainger.com/product/CHI...AS01?$smthumb$

You might turn up something that will be a better fit without having to be reworked.

Good luck!

Jeff

[dallas_]

Or weld a couple of bolts to a piece of flat steel.

[Jazzman]

I am trying to get everything done under the hood so that I can remove the hood in preparation for installation of the engine. I will also take that opportunity to get all the various parts that I have created powder coated. I ordered my Coyote engine yesterday, should be here in 10-14 days. I decided to buy it from a local shop. I hand checked many sources, and they all have the same prices, give or take $5. I decided to buy locally so that I would have a relationship with the shop in the event that I needed assistance with the wiring. This shop also has a dyno, and I wanted to be sure I had a source to get that done after the car is running.

One of the many things I love about the Flip Top is that big open expanse under the hood. I like the way that I can access everything under the hood. I did not, however, like the way the FFR "elephant ears" stick out into the sight lines under hood. Because the hood goes up, the "elephant ears" are normally attached to the inside of the hood. I decided to do a twist on the traditional FFR "elephant ears" by functionally splitting them in two, attaching the outside ear to the inside of the body, and attaching the inside piece to the frame in the traditional way.

I started out by pulling out the DS "elephant ear" and made two templates, one of the inside and one of the outside of the ear. Note to self and others. Remember when I suggested getting all your powder coating done at once to save money? If you are going to do a lot of custom modifications, you might want to wait to get that done until you are done fabricating parts. Otherwise you will end up with powder coated parts that you didn't need to coat. Oh well!



I followed the bend line in the ear and made each template 1" wider than the point of the bend.





You'll notice the two notches in the left side of the template. The lower one on the photo is to allow the front wiring harness to pass through, and the larger one above it is a space to allow the end of the hood support trusses to pass through.

I cut out new ear sections from .040 Aluminum sheet material. (Yes, my hands are very tired!!) I then carefully bent the 1" edge of each piece by placing a 1/8" sheet of Aluminum on my bench, putting the sheet to be bent on top of that, a 1x2" piece of wood to hold the various layers, and finally used c-clamps to attach the entire set to the bench. I then carefully bent the remaining 1" edge to match the angle of the bend running down the center of the FFR ears. The sheet of aluminum on the bottom provides a very sharp edge to bend these long lines over. the bends really came out rather nice. Perhaps not quite the quality of a profession bender, but much cheaper. The bend along the long direction of the FFR pieces provides substantial stiffening to the new pieces.

Next I needed to make the pieces that will hold the exterior portion of the "half ear" tightly against the inside of the hood. This technique will both create better sight lines, and it will also stiffen up the sides of the hood. I will ultimately use 1" x 1/16" L aluminum, but I didn't want to waste it during my learning curve. I bought one stick of drywall edge corner bead to act as a surrogate. After cutting to length, I started cutting notches to allow the template to bend naturally and smoothly.



After some trial and error, I found that the first 7 sections could be 2" wide and have 10 degree angles cut at each section end. This creates a 20 degree combined angle.



Then next five sections should be 2" wide, but should have 2.5 degree cuts on each end, creating a 5 degree combined angle. The next five sections should be 1.5" wide and get a 5 degree angled cut at each end, a 10 degree combined angle.



The last section is just under 1.75". I will have to custom cut that one to fit after I install the bottom piece.

I cut each notch only through one side of the 90 L channel, being careful to not cut into the other side. I did it with a sabre saw, because that is what I have. It worked just fine. left the edges a bit rough, but not too bad.

It was then ready to begin bending into the shape of the exterior "half ear". I had to adjust a couple of the notches to make it bend just right. I used my template as a guide to get the bends close to the size and shape that would fit on the car.



I drilled a hole in the center of each section that will ultimately have a rivet through it, and holes every 3" on the side that will be attached to the inside of the hood. I will ultimately attach this piece with the high strength multi surface glue that I used to bond the perforated discs to the inside of the hood to hold the trusses.