Hood fitting

[chris_cussen]

I've just fitted my hood, and used it for the first time when I went to an IVA test a couple of weeks ago. The hood came with velcro sown in and a roll of self adhesive velcro to stick to the top of the frame above the door.
As usual with self adhesive velcro It bonds better to the velcro on the hood rather than the frame.
Is there a way on making it stick better or should I consider using some 'proper' fasteners?

[gouldsborough7]

Re: Hood fitting

Chris
My newly aquired Hunter has a sticky mess around the second bar from the rear. It might have been OK when brand new, but totally unsatisfactory 11 years later.

Pulling the hood into the closed position has been a real problem, so I have yanked off the sticky velcro, and plan to remove the bar for a good cleanup with white spirit. I am not sure whether it is essential that the bar be attached to the inside of the roof fabric. I'll have to experimemt. Perhaps it is necessary in windy conditions to stop the fabric becoming airborne.

The 3rd removable bar (nearest the windscreen) is only held in place by a tight fit and only 2 poppers. Not a brilliant design. Bit of a contradiction of ideas, when compared to all that Velcro and glue of the middle bar. Where does Marlin think this bar should be stored in the car - floating around behind the seats? Pity it cannot be telescoped or folded to smallest size. Another mini-project?

Cheers
Mike

[theo thomas]

Re: Hood fitting

I've never used the third (removeable) bar in my Cabrio (six years on the road) simply because I coundn't find where it fitted, and it doesn't seem necessary anyway! The best way I've found to keep the velcro attached to the hood frame is with Evo-stick, but even that needs renewing quite frequently. Powder coating is funny stuff that doesn't take glue too well. I think the idea behind velcro is that the hood material will stretch over time thus preventing fixed fasteners from lining up. It is important to fully press the hood to the frame, or the wind will un-stick it. Mine has proved to be very weather-tight, too, even in snow!
Theo Thomas
(Barton-le-Clay, Beds)

[chris_cussen]

Re: Hood fitting

Well thats one bit of the puzzle solved!
The instruction manual didn't say if the 3rd bar should be left floating or fitted so that it hinged, so I affixed it with some bolts. Looks like that wasn't necessary.

I'll try Evo-stick though given my recent experince it is not what it used to be either.

[gouldsborough7]

Re: Hood fitting

Theo
Do you think it necessary that the bar should be stuck with glue & Velcro at all? The whole assembly is fairly taut. I think I'll try my without any sticky stuff and see what happens.

The removable bar just appears to rely on a tight fit under the fabric. The 2 straps with poppers are a joke really. I might try leaving this bar out as well. The whole assembly is of fairly poor design. When you think of the original cost of the car!!

Cheers
Mike

[dave_kitson]

Re: Hood fitting

Hi Guys
A few points and pointers here. The hood should fit snugly and be weather tight. The most likely place for ingress of water is along the front where it meets the screen frame. This should be solvable by the use of self adhesive closed cell foam straight across, doubled up to fill any gaps (stick to hood or frame), and tensioning the over centre clips to get the appropriate compression. These clips can work undone while the hood is down, as I discovered when I got water in for the first time in ages - a couple of turns on the clips and no more came in.

Regarding SVA/IVA - if you fit the hood, it is likely to fail with it up! Best to have it down and covered by the hood bag - borrow one if necessary. The hooks on the screen will either need removing or covering, eg with split thick walled rubber tube.

When fitting the Velcro to the frame, above the doors, wrap it round to the inside and clamp it (eg bulldog clips). Then drill a series of holes through Velcro and frame, and put pop rivits through - 3mm with large washers will do the job. Glue alone won't hold as the Velcro here is always being pulled apart, when taking the hood down to fold it neatly. Also when it goes up, run your finger under the Velcro and reposition the hood so it just covers the frame, then with the window up to the frame no water should get in.

As for the cross bars, the fixed ones can have 2 or 3 pieces of Velcro around them (rather than along them), but I have come across examples where the Velcro has been cut off the hood without any serious consequences. It just reduces ballooning.

The removable cross bar fits into the hinges of the side frames once the hood is up and the Velcro repositioned. The bar is then pushed upwards to tension the hood, and held with Velcro. There will be 2 short pieces sown into the hood, and you just need to glue 2 pieces around the bar to correspond. The hood will still balloon to some extent when on the move, but this just gives a bit more headroom! When the hood is down, and folded neatly, the removed bar will sit quite nicely between the folds of the hood - just remember to take it out before lifting the hood or it will bounce all over your bodywork! Some people run without this bar at all.

It sounds like some of you have a slight variation, in that there are poppers to hold the removable bar in place, this obviously gives less leeway in its positioning. If you cannot get it in neatly by adjusting the Velcro at the sides, it may be necessary to modify the bar. Arching it slightly in the centre may help, or if you seem to be short of fabric across the roof, shorten the legs and reflatten the ends in a vice.

Keep plugging away, you'll get there. Dave.

[djj_engineer]

Re: Hood fitting

Hi
I have tried for some time to keep the velco on the sidebars.
I have now resorted to drilling a series of small dia. holes aong the length of the bars ans sewing the velcro in position. To date it works.
Incidently we don't now use the centre bar but use some very thin flexble strip timber to create a small bulge in the roof to stop the water ponding on the roof.
We have never had a hood bag and the plus of not having a bag is that you can raise the roof on the move!
We broke our record on Lee's recent trip and raised it at 40mph

[theo thomas]

Re: Hood fitting

If you have nothing to fix the side edges of the hood to the rails, you'll get a nasty gap at speed, as the hood 'balloons', with loads of wind noise and rain gets in. My hood is quite tight, but this still will happen above 40mph, so I think the velcro is vital in this area. Sewing the velcro to the rail sounds like a great idea, might adopt it if I get fed up with re-evosticking! I did have to bend my rails outward to ensure that the rubber seal meets the door glass, that also stops a lot of wind noise in this area.

Theo

[CosworthCabrioLee]

Re: Hood fitting

I have seen Dave Kitsons hood frame and one area that stood out was the vecro and how it is fixed on looks very good and neat. Do you have any pics Dave so I can copy for my Cabrio

[chris_cussen]

Re: Hood fitting

Thanks for all the info. The pop rivets with big heads sounds like an ideal solution. Just off to screwfix for a packet...
As regards to IVA I went there with the hood up, and examiner paid it no attention, except asking me to fold it down. However with the fixed centre rail it would not fold, and I said I had fitted just the day before and couldn't work out how it should fold so he gave up. I think he wanted to check that with the hood folded the frame was behind the front seats.
I have to say that the IVA examination was not a thorough as I expected. The examiner had seen plenty of Marlins (it was in Taunton) and didn't check things like light positions, except to note I'd moved the front indicators to the outer bolt locations on the bumper rather than the 'correct' location. Overall although it failed it wasn't as bad as I thought.
I've put a report madaboutkitcars

[chris_cussen]

Re: Hood fitting

Bought 4.6 x 8mm pop rivets with very large heads. Came in a box of 250. I've 240 left. Any offers?

[dave_kitson]

Re: Hood fitting

Lee
I'm blowed if I can see how to downsize the pictures so I can attach them here. I've emailed them to you, as that lets me downsize as I do it. The pictures are all of the driver's side, inside & out. If anyone else needs to see them, maybe you can put them on the forum - I guess they are already the right size now!

Basically, the Velcro is attached first to the underside of the side frame - this gives the window something fairly soft to run up to. Then it is wrapped over the outside and finally the inside (mine is just short here), and this is where you pop rivit so you go thru' 2 layers of Velcro.

Finally, if you want to stick Velcro to powder coating - here or elsewhere - try roughing the coating with some emery paper and applying a coat of Evostik before putting on the Velcro, but even this lifts in time.
Dave

[h_m_cumming]

Re: Hood fitting

Chris, go to
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/Downloads/powertoys/Xppowertoys.mspx
And download Image resizer

[chris_cussen]

Re: Hood fitting

Hugh, its Dave having problems re-sizing.
An alternative is to use Paint then Image -> Stretch/Skew then type the same percent reduction into both boxes in the stretch group.

I use this:- http://www.fookes.com/ezthumbs/ when rescaling loads of photos.

[h_m_cumming]

Re: Hood fitting

Sorry Chris, must wear my glasses.
If you use IrfanView, one of the best free pic viewers and manipulators, you can resize and save in it as well.
http://www.irfanview.net/
for those interested.