Tuesday, October 27, 2015

We had set the hard top on the body to make sure the windshield angle was correct and door opening and found that every thing was out of alignment. Passenger side top of door opening was 3/4" more than the driver side and the top of the windshield was not parallel with the top. Needless to say depression set in. Sat back and analyzed the situation and came to the conclusion that we might be able to adjust it all with the body mounts. Long story short we spent a better part of the day shimming and then cutting new mounts and got everything within 1/8". Top now fits perfect, windshield aligned and the door openings were good. Now that we had overcome that problem, we now had to
mount the top to the fiberglass body with some sense of security. Shell Valley didn't offer too much of a solution, at least not to what we expected. There is nothing much other than some glue/sealer under the top of the tub. We couldn't see driving some sheet metal screws into it and hoped the top would stay on. Threaded inserts were thought of, but they could still pull out. So here is what we came up with. Top was set in place, fastened only to the windshield and the mounting holes were marked on the top tub edge.
Removed the top then slots were cut into the inner sides of the tub at the top just under the top lip where the holes were marked, then a 1/2" x 3/4" x 1 1/2" steel piece was inserted. Using an "F" drill which is the tap drill size for a 5/16 x 18 thread we drilled through the fiberglass, into the steel insert. The steel insert was removed and tapped. A clearance hole of 11/32" was then drilled through the fiberglass. Reinserted the steel insert, ran a bolt down through to hold in place and to keep straight then glassed in the steel insert. The inner surface will then be ground flush.