Mike,
Thanks for your concern over Daffy - she is all well now and up and running
again. Good thing, as I've got a track afternoon at Cadwell Park booked for
next Thursday!
I am surprised anyone would use a factory hard-top for racing - when weight is
all-important, I would have thought one of the after-market fibre-glass tops
would be preferable. Sure, the steel hard-top adds some stiffness to the car,
but I can't imagine that is of significant benefit, particularly on a
separate-chassis car like a Spit.
The headliner on Daffy's hard-top is white - or at least it looks like it was
many years ago, now it's more faded-greyish-yellowing white! I have no idea
what the difference between White Longhorn and White Plain is - never heard of
these! Daffy is '78 with black houndstooth interior, so exactly the same
spec. as Carly.
I'm not sure what the moulding is - looking at the Rimmers catalogue I guess it
may be some sort of shiny trim bit, I'll take a look at Daffy at lunchtime and
report back! Strangely, the picture says you need 2 (which doesn't seem to
make sense), but both the text list and the Moss catalogue say you need 1,
which makes more sense. The Moss catalogue uses exactly the same picture as
the Rimmers catalogue (no doubt both lifted straight from the Triumph parts
list)
The prices for the nuts and bolts are because the proper ones are vaguely
decorative specials, since the heads are exposed in the cabin. The two to the
windscreen are dome-headed and coloured black, so they don't show up obviously
against the black top edge of the windscreen. The two at the back are
dome-headed and chromed, so they look all pretty and shiny. All can be easily
replaced with perfectly ordinary 1/2" AF bolts (that's the head size, not the
thread size, I can never remember how they relate), if you are not concerned
with such detailed prettiness. The windscreen top bolts need to be a specific
length - too short and they won't reach all the way, too long and they will
not screw all the way down before the end presses against the inside of the
metal top. If you want, I'll unscrew one for you and measure it. The tie-bar
bolt is a 7/16" head bolt - I don't think these are special, but I've used the
ones that were already on the car to hold the soft-top frame on, which look
like they were picked up from a hardware store.
I hope you've been making the most of the great weather we had over the
weekend!
Richard & Daffy
|