Sloping bonnet !

[CompoSimmonite]

My Roadster is going to be modified during the rebuild and conversion to Spridget engine & box. One thing I'm doing is opening up the door aperture and making them suicide action - which will involve quite a bit of work but necessary due to my mobility problems. That means A posts will be cut out and remade with a slope that matched the angle of the outside edge of screen - the same as traditional stylists did on their sports cars.
An idea has now come to me that I could raise the scuttle at the same time but leave the grill unaltered so the bonnet sloped slightly. Even raising the scuttle a couple of inches could make a difference.
Any views, ideas etc ?

Cheers.

Paul H

[Steve Himsworth]

Re: Sloping bonnet !

My Roadster is going to be modified during the rebuild and conversion to Spridget engine & box. One thing I'm doing is opening up the door aperture and making them suicide action - which will involve quite a bit of work but necessary due to my mobility problems. That means A posts will be cut out and remade with a slope that matched the angle of the outside edge of screen - the same as traditional stylists did on their sports cars.
An idea has now come to me that I could raise the scuttle at the same time but leave the grill unaltered so the bonnet sloped slightly. Even raising the scuttle a couple of inches could make a difference.
Any views, ideas etc ?

Hi Paul, my two penneth for what its worth, the most important thing to remember is that everything you alter the position of will have a knock on effect!



Cheers.

Paul H

Hi Paul, my two penneth for what its worth, the most important thing to remember is that everything you alter the position of will have a knock on effect!
If you alter the A posts to sit at an angle the integrity of the W/screen frame as a roll over safety feature will be compromised somewhat eg, under rollover conditions any direct compression forces into the A post set at an angle could be converted into tear at the welded joints.

If you raise the level of the scuttle would you shorten the windscreen frame to compensate? or live with a higher w/screen level and alter softop and hood frame to suit? i would recommend the latter as shortening the frame is a very difficult thing to do, when we were making the kits the w/screen frame was one of the most difficult components to make in terms of bending the thing to shape as it was always done cold on a jig that was bolted to the building uprights!!.

As far as your doors are concerned we did at one time look at hinging them from the B post but it meant altering the shape of the back of the door to a vertical which was going to look a bit odd, but it could be done as there is plenty of chassis strength around there to easily support a door.

Hope this is of help to you, not trying to be negative just playing devils advocate. Good luck with it.

Regards Steve

[CompoSimmonite]

Re: Sloping bonnet !

Hi Paul, my two penneth for what its worth, the most important thing to remember is that everything you alter the position of will have a knock on effect!
If you alter the A posts to sit at an angle the integrity of the W/screen frame as a roll over safety feature will be compromised somewhat eg, under rollover conditions any direct compression forces into the A post set at an angle could be converted into tear at the welded joints.

If you raise the level of the scuttle would you shorten the windscreen frame to compensate? or live with a higher w/screen level and alter softop and hood frame to suit? i would recommend the latter as shortening the frame is a very difficult thing to do, when we were making the kits the w/screen frame was one of the most difficult components to make in terms of bending the thing to shape as it was always done cold on a jig that was bolted to the building uprights!!.

As far as your doors are concerned we did at one time look at hinging them from the B post but it meant altering the shape of the back of the door to a vertical which was going to look a bit odd, but it could be done as there is plenty of chassis strength around there to easily support a door.

Hope this is of help to you, not trying to be negative just playing devils advocate. Good luck with it.

Regards Steve

Thanks for reply.

Plan is to keep existing windscreen frame. If original screen position retained then angle iron or similar would be tacked to the frame to hold it in the correct position before removing the A posts. If I raised the frame then I'd somehow make the angle iron so it was bolted together and you then be altered to the higher level. "At the end of the day" I'll probably keep the original height. I've already got a Midget roll bar, that is a surprisingly good fit, that I intend adding to replace strength from sloping the A posts as roll over protection and also part of the hood frame. The door skin will overlap the body, as some older cars, rather than fit into the recess. Obviously the main door frame will still be in the recess. It will have to be shaped at the front edge to match the revised angle of the A posts to match the bonnet sides. I'm thinking of OTT 5mm alloy outer skin ! The rear, hinged, edge of the door will have an area that goes down over the chassis rails to the front of the spring mount. That way it'll give the impression of a deep door but will in fact part hide the slope of the chassis. A small piece will be added to the chassis behind the spring mount to blank off the area the door will cover.

[dbazdavies]

Re: Sloping bonnet !

Like this ???

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/aluma-coupe-hot-rod.htm