Restoring a Top Hat

[Parazine]

Trimming gathers pace!

Now that I'm out of the classroom for a few weeks, I thought I'd get on with the door panels. First job was to remove all the inappropriate materials and repair the base cards. These were re-cut during the 1985 cosmetic restoration and have survived well, although the wood is very dry.
The heap of nasty 1980's blown vinyl, foam and staples grows!

   

   

The previous owner said that a friend had reupholstered the car in 1985, apparently he was a retired professional trimmer, who had worked on boats. I suppose that's why the interior reminded me of a 1970's cabin cruiser! He obviously had a power stapler and wasn't afraid to use it. I removed hundreds of the wretched things when I took down the headlining, David Nightingale said that he had blisters from removing dozens of them from the back seat!

I finally plucked up courage to cut some material and glue it onto the panels, which have now been pinned into position and I'm quite pleased with the results. 

   

I need to finish off the front and then start on the back, which involves sewing the wheel arch covers. My friend has offered to help with this, so I'll leave this bit till last.

Oh, and I need to finish off the headlining and rear window trim, not using Hidem Banding. Enough work for another week I think?

[Ivor Hawkins]

Looking good Tim! I’m doing the same job on the box at the moment and thanks to the skill of Bryan Purves, it’s looking a whole lot better than if I had attempted it on my own.

The Art Deco style material really works well on the top hat.

[Ruairidh Dunford]

I really like the look of this, what a success!

[Renaud]

Gorgeous!

[Peter Naulls]

What a lovely job. The cloth suits it really well.

[Tony Griffiths]

The trim looks to be perfection - so appropriate for the car. A great job.

[Parazine]

Last Knockings!

A couple of jobs needed doing, one was repairing the petrol tank. I'd gone round this with a fine tooth comb 18 months ago and attended to all the cracks and split solder I could see (the tank had been lozenged in the accident and was leaking badly). It was OK with water in it but when petrol went in, there was a very small drip, about 1 drip of fuel every 24 hrs. I determined it was from the outlet, so it had to come off:

   

I wiggled a 4BA screw into the top hole and soldered it in place. Here it is all fluxed up:

   

Finally, drilled through the bottom holes and put 4BA screws onto those as well. Then sweated the whole lot together, after tightening the nuts:

   

The tank now holds petrol, no leaks. Result!
I hasten to add, this tank had not held petrol for four months and spent most sunny summer days out in full sun, toasting off the volatiles. Don't attempt this unless you are confident you know what you are doing! 

The other job, necessary to get the car running again was a replacement condenser. I've already had a rant about the poor quality SR4 replacement items so I decided to make one up. I obtained the capacitor recommended by the "Magneto Guys" and looked around for a bit of steel tube to hold it. Found a bit of an old swing seat in the scrap pile:

   

I added the cap from the poorly made, modern replacement and soldered it on to my tube. I reduced the size of the capacitor by filing the corners until it fitted the tube and selected the lead from the modern replacement to be my input lead:

   

I sleeved the capacitor in heatshrink and soldered the input lead on:

   

The capacitor was inserted into its new case and "potted" in with Araldite.

   

Voila, a new "Condenser"!

I've had the engine running today, and covered about 40 miles. The engine is much smoother with the replacement condenser and I didn't have to walk home to recover a broken down Top Hat!

Need to finish the trim off and do some final touching up and the car will be complete.

[Nick Turley]

Looks a great job you must be very proud.
Thanks for sharing the process with us.

[Parazine]

Last Knockings 2

Finally finished the trim! My friend, Aileen came round last weekend and completed the wheel arch covers for me, I find sewing a reliable, straight seam a trying experience.

   

Dismantled the car and fitted the covers today, looks good!

   

My trick to avoid Hidem Banding, which was not invented until the 1930's, is to use a "curtain" of seat material, folded in half and ironed to give it a sharp edge. It's then pinned into place with braid. It would be have been nice to use pasting lace but I didn't have the capacity for a second mortgage! I think the results look OK; the braid was cheap enough at a few quid from the sewing shop.

   

Remaining jobs are some touching up and an oil leak to fix. This latter may be a problem because it's coming from the area around the disc above the oil pump drive, which will be a real pain to fix properly.....
I've completed the first 100 miles so an oil change is called for as well.

[jpsmit]

looks brilliant