Soft top internal fastening

[Monkeyfinger]

I'm just trying to finish a few loose ends, and I noticed in the car handbook the image below, regarding lowering the soft top.

I note that according to this image there should be a fastener (Tenax I assume), positioned on the internal hood flaps just behind the seats. So, on my car, these are not present on either the internal trim or the previous hood. Does anyone know if these were a later addition in production? - the trim panels in that area do not even look substantial enough to take a fixing, and there's no sign of any holes where they would need to be.

It's not really a concern to me, but I like to get things correct if possible, and now I'm curious. Finding images of that area has eluded me online so far. My new mohair hood, has no fittings, but I would assume they would need to be added after fitting a replacement hood, so that's not surprising.

[Heronscourt]

On my car there is a Tenex fastener on the trim behind the hood swivel bracket. That trim has a wooden fillet behind it which the fastener screws. It’s where your sketch shows the fastener
Hope this helps


Alan
Series 1.5 roadster

[Monkeyfinger]

Thanks Alan - that does help, up to a point! Of course I have no idea to tell what may have been changed in the dim past, but although my car had a 2 year rebuild completed very recently, the car has been familiar to me since 1977, and as far as I know it is pretty original in that area. However, the panels where that fastener would be, are just vinyl covered hardboard/millboard on my car. There are only2 holes along the top edge (image attached), presumably intended for screws, which my restorer has failed to install. That's probably because there is nothing behind the panel, just the outer body shell.

It would be very useful to see any pictures that you (or others) may have of what should be going on behind this outer panel. How large is the fillet of wood you mention, and how is it fixed in place? Of course it's possible that even though it's shown in the handbook, these fixings were dropped for Series 2 cars - I need a few more S2 roadster owners to chip in here.

[tim wood]

Hi Richard,
I’ve got some photos which show the wood fillet but I never have any success in posting them here !

If you pm me you email address I’ll send them to you.

Tim

[Gfhug]

Tim, have you tried Imgur as shown here? viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19527
It'd be interesting to hear if the advice there works for you, if not I will edit as appropriate.

Regards

Geoff

[Monkeyfinger]

Tim - many thanks, I've pm'd you my email.

All I do with images is drag them into the message window, and it all just seems to work! Alternatively, there's an 'add image to post' prompt at the bottom, which also works (for me...)

Adding some more forensic detail - peeling back the vinyl covering on the panel, reveals blue biro showing where to cut, and that the base material is millboard (as for the underdash panels). On that basis, I will confidently say that the previous incumbent (my dad), probably made up these replacements, and potentially didn't re-instate the hood fastener! I do know that the hood was on the car when purchased in 1977, and that never had any Tenax/Lift the dot style of fixing on the internal flaps.

Sometimes I wish I never started wondering if some aspect of the car is not quite right, but I do enjoy the chase!

[tim wood]

Hi Richard,
I’ve sent some photos by email. They’re not great but hopefully help.
What you should have is a roughly trapezoid piece of wood secured with two screws into the inner wing behind the the trim panel so it cannot be seen.

The fastener for the hood then screws into this. ( or at least it did on my car.)

Regards
Tim

[Monkeyfinger]

Brilliant info and very helpful. I've just trawled through hundreds of photos from the retstoration, and as is often the case, can't find the perfect shot of this area. However, in the background I found a glimpse of the area as the car was being stripped. I think I see the wood, and have outlined it in red on the photo below. Does this look right? Looks to be 7 or 8 inches by 2 inches. At most, I guess 1/2inch thick. As you say, this can screw into the double skin of the body at this point. It will at least provide a mounting for the trim panels, which were incorrectly fitted. I note that there is a vertical slit in the trim panel, which I thought was just damage - however, it seems the front section should tuck behind the lip on the bodywork, as per the second photo of the opposite side of the car.

[Gfhug]

A very useful topic as I will be getting to do this one day (maybe a while, yet) but I shall bookmark this for future reference. Thank you, gentlemen.

Geoff

[Monkeyfinger]

Always a pleasure, Geoff.

It's these knotty areas that don't get any attention that can be problematic

[tim wood]

Hi Richard,
Following on from our PM exchanges.
I’ve taken off the left hand (passenger ) trim panel that fits above the wheel arch and sent you some photos of how this strange shaped piece of wood fits.
Also shows how the tenax stud fits.

Hope these shots are useful.
If you need more then let me know - I havent put the trim back on yet but will do so this weekend

Tim

[tim wood]

Hi Richard,
Following on from our PM exchanges.
I’ve taken off the left hand (passenger ) trim panel that fits above the wheel arch and sent you some photos of how this strange shaped piece of wood fits.
Also shows how the tenax stud fits.

Hope these shots are useful.
If you need more then let me know - I havent put the trim back on yet but will do so this weekend

Tim

Ps, if you can publish these photos on the forum it may help others ( I’ll learn how todo it one day)
Pps, not today as I’m crawling around on my back in the garage changing the clutch slave cylinder!

[Monkeyfinger]

At Tim's request, I've attached his photos. I'll be working on this area myself shortly, and will add some of my install, once done.

[tim wood]

Many thanks Richard

[Heronscourt]

I've only just seen the photos showing the Tenax fastener attached to the trim panel using a threaded tenax fastener with a nut behind the panel. This is incorrect. On my car the tenax fastener has a wood screw thread and screws through the trim panel onto the wooden fillet for added strength

Alan

[Monkeyfinger]

Alan, thanks for that information. It's interesting because that is what I was planning to do, rather than the type with a nut. Having said that, there is a set of 'original' rear deck panels on Ebay at the moment, which show a fastener secured by a nut, so clearly there is some variation that has crept in over the intervening years.
I've already installed the wooden backing as below (for reference, this was a piece of feather edge fence board I found in the shed. It works well, since it has a taper profile which fits the internal body contour). It seems the trim panel is then secured with 2 screws flanking the Tenax and slightly lower, and the tail end is secured with the same screw as the long rear panels either side of the interior lamp.

Can I also try and confirm the correct fastener type? From the image in the drivers handbook, it appears to be a Tenax rather than a Lift-the -dot type, i.e. this:

This is what I intend to use for it's subjectively better appearance, but either fastener type would do the job.

As always, very grateful for any images of other vehicles - pictures of roadsters with the hood up, showing this general area, are surprisingly hard to find.

[Monkeyfinger]

In the interest of adding some detail to this thread, I managed to acquire a set of (assumed) original side trim panels. I've done a bit of work and produced a drawing of the sheet metal piece, which can be seen to be a reasonably complex curved section. This may be useful to others who may need to create these panels from scratch. It includes the factory screw and fastener positions. I can also confirm that this part sits on top of the longer panels either side of the interior lamp, with a single screw and cup washer fixing them in place.
I'd recommend using this to create a card pattern, and then trim to suit. The pdf should be printed 1:1 on a single A3 sheet or print across a couple of A4 sheets. There's a 50mm dimension to help with scaling.