CanberraBJ8
Jedi Trainee
Offline
Well, after plugging away for weeks, the roof is back on and the the car ready for general use ie all weather!
The Bristleflex seals worked really well and I believe I've a watertight Healey, but time will tell :friendly_wink:
I spent quite a while re-making the wooden tack rails that go around the windows in an effort to close the gaps between the wood, seal and window. Rather than use the original design I laminated a piece of Aluminium between sections of wood. I got them to near perfect, but on fitting the fabric to the frame the extra tension has moved the positions slightly, and though it still looks to be a watertight fit, its not as good as it was without the soft top fabric. This is partly my own doing - which always makes it worse! During my first try to improve the fit of the top I stretched the fabric really tight and had to trim about a half inch from the front edge - above the windscreen. That came back to bight me. The half inch would have made all the difference I think...
Here is a few shots of how the car was as bought, and some after the recent work:
before - you can see the tack rail hanging down covered in tan vinyl
and after
The tack rails:
and the 'gap' at the bottom of the window:
and the top:
More photos on the Photobucket album - I think you can just view them via the photos above.
The Bristleflex seals worked really well and I believe I've a watertight Healey, but time will tell :friendly_wink:
I spent quite a while re-making the wooden tack rails that go around the windows in an effort to close the gaps between the wood, seal and window. Rather than use the original design I laminated a piece of Aluminium between sections of wood. I got them to near perfect, but on fitting the fabric to the frame the extra tension has moved the positions slightly, and though it still looks to be a watertight fit, its not as good as it was without the soft top fabric. This is partly my own doing - which always makes it worse! During my first try to improve the fit of the top I stretched the fabric really tight and had to trim about a half inch from the front edge - above the windscreen. That came back to bight me. The half inch would have made all the difference I think...
Here is a few shots of how the car was as bought, and some after the recent work:
before - you can see the tack rail hanging down covered in tan vinyl


and after


The tack rails:


and the 'gap' at the bottom of the window:


and the top:

More photos on the Photobucket album - I think you can just view them via the photos above.