MGB topped

After having this little car for almost 18 months, I finally scratched together the money for a new cloth top. Today's post is about getting that top and then it getting installed. For my fellow do-it-youself'ers, prepare to be disappointed: I didn't do it. I'll explain.

Topless
When I bought this car, it was early autumn. The days were warm and the summer nights were just starting to shorten. I could tell that the prior owner had put some love into the car, but then abruptly left it in a barn next to an open window. The top fouled and fell apart. Water got into the interior, eventually rusting the floor. I fixed the floor, and closing in the interior before getting that improved seemed like the next logical step.

Pick Your Poison
Having not owned a convertible before, I didn't realize there were so many different kinds of convertible top. They run the gamut of pricing as well, ranging from a couple hundred dollars (US$) for a plain black vinyl top to well over a grand (US$) for a high-end cloth top with glass windows and a defroster element.

For the MG, the standard has always been a "Robbins" top. Robbins was a convertible top manufacturer in England. I say "was" because that company is no longer in business and their name was bought by another. So, when you buy a "Robbins" top, it may not actually be a Robbins anymore. There are low-price "EZTop" tops which some report are quite good. Others have struggled with them. After reading and researching for a few months, I decided to get a top from a small outfit in England: Prestige Auto Trim. They offer 3 different price ranges, with a few different options within.

I believe that there are some areas where buying for price makes sense, but there's an old adage about price, quality and regrets that's basically "you only regret buying for quality at the register, you regret buying cheap the rest of the time". For items which are expensive to replace because of the hours it takes to do the job, buying a cheap part is all the more regrettable. For example, consider how much work it is to replace your clutch. You could buy the cheap no-name brand. You'll save, like $30. That clutch will not last as long. In fact, it could fail immediately after install, and the hours you spent installing gets to be done again... and you get to buy the part again. So, did you save $30?

Take this, and apply it to a convertible top. Installing a top isn't necessarily hard, but it is time consuming. It was with this time consideration that led me to get a top that could last 30 years, if well cared for, and will look phenomenal once in place. The weather where you live is a factor, too. Here in the Pacific Northwest our weather can be all over the place. For example, we have a long Spring where temperatures vary from the upper 40's(F, ~7C) at night to into the lower 80's(F, ~27C) during the day. Mixed into that are days that range from spotty rain to clear skies. Having a convertible is ideal for skies like that. But those cold mornings are all the colder when all you have overhead is thin cloth. After years of driving a bus with little-to-no heat, I decided to get a cabriolet top; those are the ones with a headliner and a little insulation between the headliner and the outer cloth top.

Shipping from UK

Once selected, ordering and shipping direct from the UK presents unique challenges. First, your bank needs to be aware of the fact that you are making an overseas order. Otherwise, the fraud alerts go off and your account gets locked. Yes, that happened. Once they removed the lock, and allowed an international order, I got my order in. Since these tops are made-to-order, there was a delay for the top to get fabricated, but within a couple of weeks it was boxed (extremely well) and on it's way to international flights to LAX. Passage through LAX includes a stop in customs. This was an additional 3 day delay followed by a (~$100US) import duty fee to get it through to domestic shipping. Factor the time and the fee into your international ordering decisions. Finally, after almost 6 weeks from the time I ordered the top, it arrived at my doorstep.

Do I Really Want to Do This Myself?
As I said earlier, installing a top isn't necessarily hard. Getting it right is. If you pull the fabric too tight, the top won't close. If it is too loose, it will sag, collect water and make an awful racket on the road flapping in the wind. In between, there is a sweet spot. Finding that sweet spot is where the science meets art. Those who do installs like this for a living are just far better equipped or schooled to hit that sweet spot. I decided that paying someone a few hundred (US$) is worth having a top that doesn't make noise, closes properly and keeps the elements out. While I suppose it is possible that I could have done it myself, I sincerely doubt I could have gotten it nearly as nice as it turned out. For posterity, I had the folks at British Auto Works (BAW) in North Plains do the install. Because of my timing, their shop took almost 2 weeks, but it was worth the wait.

While British Auto Works had the car, they checked other things out. They confirmed all of my work to date, checked compression (190 in all cylinders) and pressure checked the fluid systems. They found a small oil leak at the oil cooler bypass and found that the charging system wasn't working too well. More for the list.

That's it for today. Thanks, as always, for following along-

Capturing an Escaped Captive... Nut

Rain. and cold. and blustery wind. All of my projects except one are sitting in the driveway under tarps held down with whatever I could get my hands on. My new-ish job has a policy about how much paid-time-off you can carry forward into the next year, so I find myself with days at home. So... what to do? Work on the one project that's sitting in the garage so one day it too can sit in the driveway under a tarp while one of his brothers are in the garage getting worked on. Today covers one of the final steps to achieving that goal.

Captive Nut

test fitting a panel

On the convertible MG, the top fabric is attached to a steel frame. Depending upon the year, the frame could take on one of a few forms. Mine is the last style, which folds straight back with large scissor-style hinges. These hinges mount to the sides of the car just behind the door latch. The steel inner body panel has a flat surface into which 3 holes were drilled at the factory. Inside the panel a nut was welded behind each hole. These nuts are what holds the convertible frame to the car, and therefore hold the top onto the car. Yes, there are clasps along the top of the windscreen and there are little hold-downs along the rear deck, but most of the work is handled by these 6 bolt-nut combinations.

The Escape
With any car, rust and wear take a toll. On the MGB, the little captive nuts (1/4 - 28) can detach from the inner body panel. Once separated, the frame can be attached, but the person doing the attaching must hold the nut with a wrench or pliers or something. Since the entire inner steel skin is usually covered with a vinyl panel (on top of which the convertible frame is usually attached), the owner has a choice: no more panels, no more top or re-capture the nuts. The PO had decided to select multiple options: no more panels and no more top, leaving the frame stripped of canvas and disconnected, but sitting behind the seats after discarding the vinyl cards prior to selling it to me.

Alternatives
I've driven around in plenty of cars which didn't have all of their inner panels. The operation of the car is in no way negatively impacted. It just looks trash. So, I decided I would get the nuts re-captured. There are a few ways to go after it.

Go Crazy, Tear down and Weld - Since these were originally welded into place at the factory before the body was assembled, getting them welded back in the same way is virtually impossible. I imagine someone industrious enough could take enough of the car apart to get access to the nuts. I don't see the value. Maybe if you have dreams of showing your car at concours or something, this would be the most-like-original path. Or maybe you're just sadistic. Either way, rock on.

Ugliest welds ever

Get a Repair Panel - Moss has a repair kit (link here) that could be used to fix this, so clearly this happens often. They run $18 each, which isn't bad, but as I noted at the beginning, I have some time, and I don't want to wait for shipping. I imagine the kit is a pretty easy solution though: set it so it is aligned with the holes, mark the mounting spot with a pen, drill, install. Easy peasy.

Make your Own Panel - While not necessarily the easiest, if you have some time and either don't have the money for the Moss panel, or don't want to wait for it, it's not that hard. I chose this path and I detailed steps below.

Recapture
I have the nuts in hand and plenty of super-thin scrap steel lying around. I considered that the steel to which the nuts were attached did not need to be terribly stout. It just needed to be strong enough to hold the nuts in place against some modest pressure during installation. Once the bolts seat into the nuts, the plate doesn't contribute to holding the top on: its still the bolt-nut combination. With this in mind, I cut a couple (one per side) small pieces of HVAC sheet metal with tin shears to they fit in the hole, around the nut(s) which were still clinging to the inner body panel. I held them in place, marked the nut-holes with a pen and step-drilled holes large enough for the bolt to easily pass. I then sanded the steel to get any zinc coating off. This is important as the off-gassing from welding a zinc coating is really bad.

For some reason, my top had an extra bracket that looked like this, but not chromed. I think it is for a wind blocker (like this) that wasn't with the car when I bought it. Love that. Anyway, I took that bracket thing and used it to provide more meat for the next steps (see the top picture). I aligned the HVAC sheet with the holes in the bracket and then threaded the bolt through, tightening the nut against the HVAC sheet.  Next came some of the worst looking welds I have ever produced (see middle picture). That is saying something, because my welding skills are pretty bad. Still, I was able to get the nuts to hold to the sheet and hold well enough for me to remove and re-insert the bolts multiple times.

"Pop" goes the Rivet

Install
Whether you did the Moss repair panel or you made your own, the mounting to the car is very similar. The panel sits flush against the outer-side of the inner wall (inside the cavity) with the nuts pointing out (away from the cabin). With the Moss panel, you can hold the thing on from the inside and see where the hole will be because it's symmetrical. Must be nice. With the home-made job, its not. Instead, I made judgments based on where the holes in the body were, and where the panel was as I held it up against the wall from inside the cavity. I marked 2 holes on the inner wall, pulled the panel aside and step-drilled to 13/32". This is just a hair larger than 3/8" so a 3/8" pop rivet will fit snug without binding as it goes in. To make sure I got the holes in exactly the right spots on the panel, I bolted it into place and drilled through the holes I'd just made in the body and then through the panel. With the panel still bolted on, I pop-riveted the panels in. I was still able to easily remove the bolts from the nuts (without touching the nuts), so the convertible top frame should now be capable of being installed after the interior cards are in place.

That's it for today's post. Yes, I could have simply ordered panels and this would have taken far less time. Instead, I got to play with my MIG and save myself about $40US. Thanks, as always for following along, and I hope you're having a wonderful holiday season. Hapy NewYear!