Cabriolet assembly-photos

[eystein]

Kevin,

Could you please explain more about the sentence below.
What is the cross panel ? Is it the panel in front of the rumble lid ?
Are you sure that the braces under the panel will set the door post position ?

I thought that that position was set by the turnbuckles going from the corner of the quarter lock pillars and front belt rail wood down to the sills ?

Anyway, adjusting the height of the braces to the panel in front of the rumble lid, needs to be done identically on both sides of the car in order to not affect rumble lid fit

You will expect to need to change the height of the two braces that go under the upper cross panel. These braces will alter the in-out position of the top of the door posts. The affects the door top to bottom in-out fit.

 

[Kevin in NJ]

I thought the same as you till I put my car together.

The door back edge angle was not matching the quarter panels. Scratched my head on this one for a while. The turnbuckles did not do much and I know now they are to give structure for the top (kind of complicated, not sure the best way to describe it). I had to make up my braces as I only had one that was missing most of the bottom and way thinner then it should be. So I go some repro ones for a different body and made up the bottom based on pictures and some guessing.

Got pretty close and was fortunate in each was a bit too short. Anyway I stumbled onto the fact when you move them you change the distance across the top. Makes sense, you raise a roof you pull in the sides.

My rumble lid fit was more because the side of the left quarter panel was pushed in some. This will change the shape through the rumble lid edge of the quarter. That was another head scratching week or so till I realized what was wrong. I noticed the left side was vertical from the top of the fender bead to the belt bead. While the right side, which fit good, was angled out.

What I learned the most was to trust was I see as being right. You can build the cabriolet body thinking about what makes sense. You do not need all sort of measurements when building the body. You do need well made wood that is fairly accurate or you add hours/days/weeks to trying to figure out how to put the body together. So if you notice I talk about how the wood should be. It is not because I want JS perfect- it is because I found if the wood is right the darn car will just go together. When it is wrong it is a fight!!! I have done a lot of fighting with wood. So much after that becomes making it look right.

A note on turnbuckles. They have more to do with the tensions caused by the flex of the frame and how the top connects to the top of the cowl. It becomes a tight box structure with a lot of power to distort. The turnbuckle stabilize the top of the door post from rocking. This coupled with the door dovetails (I speak a lot about how these MUST function properly too) you keep the body from tearing itself apart. At least that is what I believe is happening.

In any event, I still have much to learn so take what I say and check that I am right. My final test comes when I finally put a top on the body. Going to be a while unless some wealthy person (I do not have any wealthy relatives) gives me a pile of money or a full interior and top

 

[eystein]

Kevin,

I have had a lot of use of measurements, and consider the original drawings of the wood as being the single best purchase I have made for my car. It has allowed me to correct all the problems in the wood that I purchased from Classic Wood (refer to my post on modelahouse) I have found that when correcting the wood according to the original drawings it most often solves problems of fit to the sheet metal. That being said, the right quarter panel had to have "only" 50% of the metal replaced. - The left panel needed more....... So, obviously, in this case, not everything was spot on after the repair on the panels was complete. In order to find out what is wrong with the sheet metal and adjusting it to where it should be, it has been a great help to first check and correct the wood according to the original drawings and then to correct the sheet metal accordingly. The wood drawings with all their measurements have been like a map to show me if I am on the right course or not.

As to the quarter lock pillars (door posts) I have locked them firmly in place to each other in the exact mutual position as given by the original drawings. This I have done by a solid piece of plywood as shown in the photo (works well as a backrest for my son too )

(Btw. one of the superb features of the original drawings is that they include exact measurements of the position of each peace w.r.t the centerline of the body, and the front line of the cowl, thereby telling you how everything should fit together)

All the fitting of the quarter panels, door gaps and belt rail wood has been done with the pillars locked in position like this. I am thinking that when I finally mount the pillars, I will "cast" them into this position by using epoxy to the sills, so that minute imperfections in the fit of the mating surfaces will not distort the positioning once the plywood is removed.

So, as far as I see it, it will depend on the tension in the panels, and whether any residual tension will pull the pillars out of position when the plywood is removed. It does not seem too bad to me, and I have currently cut 4-5 slots in the sheet metal and reinforcement in the q-panel lip under the belt rail wood, in order to releave metal tension when pulling the curvature of the panel top edge into alignment with the forward belt rail wood.

 

[LopezCarguy]

here is picture of sub rails I built out of oak, big question is B piller location in relation to cowl so doors fit..think cowl is key since frame holes position the cowl?? Love the pictures..

 

[eystein]

Carguy,

I started with checking with the drawings that the notches at the front where the rear edge of the cowl were correct with respect to the frame mounting holes, and that they were exactly parallel left-right. Then I mounted the cowl and hung the doors, adjusted the door to cowl gaps parallel, and then shimmed the cowl to make the bottom of the doors parallel to the sills.

Then, I put on the quarter panels temporarily, making sure that they were perfectly fitting to the quarter lock pillars and fastened with tiny wood screws to the pillars top and bottom. Pillars were locked to each others according to drawing dimensions by the plywood plate mentioned in the previous post. The top of the pillars were positioned to the exact height above the sill line according to drawing dimensions, by mounting the bottom triangular braces to the pillars, and resting, (but not yet bolted), on the top of the sills. Then I adjusted the door gap by moving the pillars back or forth and shimming with this slices of wood. (The cutouts for the pillars in the sills were oversize in the front-rear direction) In addition, I corrected the shimming of the cowl to make the belt line beads align from doors to q-panel. The rear of the body was shimmed to make the door to q-panel gap uniform top to bottom.

With the quarter lock pillars positioned and locked in place by shims, I moved to the rear. I found that by positioning the rear body cross member according to drawings, the quarter panels now fit almost perfectly. The panel under the rumble lid was mounted to the rear crossmember, and the quarter panels were bolted to the panel under the lid.

Then I mounted the rear inner q-panel braces with C-clamps to the sills, the curved inner panel and the rumble lid. At this point, you can make slight adjustments by tapping the rear crossmember back and forth. - Make sure to watch the rumble lid fit. When everything was fine, I drilled the holes fastening the rear crossmember and the rear q-panel braces to the sills.

I also corrected the height of the front q-panel braces to make the top of the deck level such that the rumble lid would close level to the opening.

Then I moved to fitting the belt rail wood which is what I am doing right now.

In general, throughout the process, it is very important to keep the sills shimmed and tied down firm to a straight frame. Also, the bottom of the q-panels should be hugging the sills both vertically and horizontally- use C-clamps.

And -expect to mount and dismount everything about a gazillion times, and remember that everything has to be checked with everything in place before you may dare to claim that you're done. -It's a highly iterative process, fixing just a few new points every time around.