Progress Thread The next "big" project for my Cobra - T-top conversion coming soon!

[95steedamustang]

@95steedamustang - he sure loves T Top conversions- maybe one day he will build a II. Until then, maybe he has some advice/Ideas?

My one take away from doing numerous T-Top conversion is that it is nearly impossible to do a worse job and they did originally. I think a kid was a hand saw could’ve done better. People always like to talk about a factory T Top car but in reality, they butchered those cars to do the conversions so if one takes their time and does it right and tries to do a good job it’s gonna be 10x better than a factory one. Btw. I have done a II t-top conversion for a customer, but it’s been a long time ago. I’ll see if I can dig up some pictures.

 

[LILCBRA]

Started on a few spot welds this afternoon after fighting my spot weld cutter. The pilot tip needed a little sharpening so I did that, but in the process I lost the spring somehow. Luckily I have 2, so I tried to use the second one but the pilot hole is wallowed out. I then swapped the spring into the first one, made a couple cuts before the pilot stuck. Pulled it apart again to clean the chips from the bore and went back at it. This happened a couple times - I think I spent more time dealing with the cutter than I did working on the spot welds. But when I did work on the spot welds, the dimple I punched into the center didn't hold the pilot well enough and the cutter would walk. I was so frustrated by then that I just gave up for the night. When I get back out there I'll start by drilling some pilot holes, hopefully that will do the trick!

 

[LILCBRA]

Halfway there....

 

[LILCBRA]

Almost there....

After locating and drilling the spot welds on the other side, I decided I'd better figure out some kind of support system just in case stuff comes crashing down. So I ran a couple ratchet straps through the car on opposite ends.

Once that was done, I commenced with my air hammer, which turned out to be more or less useless and overkill. So I switched to a sharp chisel and a hammer, drilled the spot welds that were too shallow, and started splitting the channels from the lower frame.

As I think you can see, it's still hung up. Turns out I missed a bunch of spot welds on the inner portion of the channels like there were on the front and back. I'll have to clean up all of the foam and glue residue to locate them.

Now that it's dropped enough to be able to see everything, it looks like it was put up in 3 parts - 2 channels and the lower frame. I suspect that they cut the front and center beam/support from the hard top, installed the frame, then cut the door frame between the pillars before installing the channels. I guess we'll test that theory soon!

 

[LILCBRA]

Had a couple welds that I missed on the driver side channel, otherwise it came right out without a fuss.

Here are the spots that needed cut:

And here it all is out of the car.

I couldn't resist - here's a targa top II....

It's now ready for @Noobz347 4x4 conversion!


Otherwise, it's time to get this thing out of the garage and give the garage a good cleaning and organizing. All this space now feels cramped....


On another note, @welder4956 & @Blackhawkxx - I've not forgotten about you guys. I'll get those things somewhat cleaned up and shoot you guys a PM with pics and such, probably on Monday.

 

[Noobz347]

Take what's left, put it on a Bronco chassis, and we'll make it a hard top.

Somebody somewhere, has a fiberglass front clip.

 

[2Blue2]

I want u to save the hatch and associated sheet metal to make match your Ai photo of fast bak w/coupe back windows in the random thread.

 

[LILCBRA]

I want u to save the hatch and associated sheet metal to make match your Ai photo of fast bak w/coupe back windows in the random thread.

I thought of playing around a little bit with some scrap sheet steel and mimicking the look on the T top car....