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MGB-GT Snugtop questions

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A

A. Claffie

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Last summer I thought it would be smarter to pick up a cheap hardtop for my non-running derelict 71 MGB rather than trying to piece together what remained of the soft top while the car sat and waited for the great bird of inspiration to come and convince me that resurrecting this clunker would be a good use of my time.

So we got this cheap Snugtop. It's actually pretty nice and just might have doubled the value of the car.

At first I was afraid that only one of the latches at the windshield header worked, but I fiddled with the one I thought was nonfunctional and made it work.

Since there's a pretty good chance that this car will be moving in the near future (on a trailer, of course), I figure I should see if I could figure out if there are other attachment points. I assume these aren't just held on by windshield frame latches and gravity.

Here's what I'm looking at aft of the doors

130402-02.jpg


Should there be something attached to the car that meets the hardtop's bracket?

And where it meets the decklid. Does the hard top use the soft top 'catchers' in any way?

130402-03.jpg
 
looks like an eye bolt pinned thru the bracket on the quarter panel with a wing nut thru the top angle bracket would do it. Bob
 
The hold-downs at the rear of the door are an "L" bracket with threaded holes to mate up with bolts to hold the "ears" of the top. There should be slotted receivers on the top at the rear edge to engage the chrome "teardrop" hold-downs.
 
I fiddled around with this thing some this afternoon. There is nothing in the rear to catch the teardrop hold-downs so the only thing holding the hardtop to the car are the windshield frame latches and gravity.

Despite what looks like rinky-dink hardware, those windshield latches do a great job and I can see very little movement when I try to shake the roof while on the car. I don't trust them to keep the roof attached while on a 500 mile trailer ride we're planning in a couple weeks. I wonder if they make industrial strength zip-ties to thread through the mounts behind the doors.
 
Like the good Doctor said, a "L" bracket attached to the "U" shaped bracket near the folding top hinges and then a bolt through both should do the trick, or a couple of loops of picture hanging wire until you get the real thing will do the job.

Wayne
 
Should work! Here's what the "real" ones look like:


holddown2.JPG
 
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