Rawml's 64 Daily Driver Build

[bosque]

Pretty cool Mike.....hey a member named GaryCSI needs a new cap.

[rawml]

Couldn't wait until morning to bust the mold. I had to rip the mold apart to get out the top. I'll have to use some of the pieces to build the second half.

Rear half of the top before trimming.


This is what is left of the mold.

[bosque]

Try this too!

[rawml]

Sticking wasn't the issue. I alway wax the mold and then spray a mold release over it. It was the lip on the lower half of the mold. To make this piece I had to make a two-piece mold. I had to lay all the fiberglass on the main piece, insert a second mold inside the top then glass over that. The second mold has to broken apart to get it out. The aluminum sheet still has wax on it. I plan to use it for the second half.

[faux40]

You're awesome! I'm very impressed with your build! Thanks for sharing!

John

[RiverPatrol]

That is some amazing engineering there. Which makes a point: fiberglass repro hard tops could have a reasonable market in our little Patrol world.

[rawml]

Thanks for all comments. What I didn't show however are the two side pieces I screwed up. One was too thin and the other I made the windows too big. Pretty expensive mistake but it got easier each time.

Looking back, I think the easiest way would to make it one piece. I had to make this from scratch but when finished, it could be used as a plug to make a mold. Someone that does big scale fiberglassing could easily do this. I can tell you that cutting and sanding fiberglass will make you itch. I used tyvex, resprirator, and eye protection and I itch like crazy and I haven't really started sanding. I have dropped $700 in material already and still need probably another $150 to finish. I ended up using 4 gallons of resin on the the top piece alone. Mostly because I used thick material that soaks up the resin. I think it's strong enough to stand on. After looking at this picture, I realized I don't have the top portion of the rear door. Will probably go with a pick-up topper style that lifts up. Going to paint the sides green and the top piece white. I am going to use a product called featherfill which is a high build primer that will stick to fiberglass. Supposedly you can hide a penny on a flat surface because it lays on so thick. It turns out that getting glass cut for this is expensive. At this very moment, I plan to use plexiglass for the back two windows.

Pieced together my the rear half of my hardtop with stainless 1/4" bolts. The flange lips are rubbing against the rollcage padding on the sides so I had to remove some of the padding. I'll trim the lip area later. I made it an inch taller than the OEM top. This was to ensure it cleared my rollcage padding. Didn't consider the sides.



This shows the Patrol from the side. All I need is a 24"x61" piece that connects the hardtop to the upper windscreen. I removed the metal channel pieces that seal the upper side doors and bolt to the windscreen from my old metal hardtop. I will rivet these pieces in. The rest of the hardtop went to the landfill with the help of my sawzall. My wife said it wasn't going back in the yard. I told her I was white-trash and it went with the theme of the yard but she wasn't buying it. Now all I have there are my extra R and L doors. She don't like those in the back yard but they are not going anywhere.




This is my photoshop version of what I hope it to look like. I haven't really decided if I am going to make this front piece removable or bond it to the rear portion of the topper. Bonding it would ensure it's sealed, but making it two pieces would make it rather easy to remove it.

[bosque]

Bond it. I think just being able to unbolt to store flat is big.
Good going on those rear corner windows.....Deluxe

[Swerve]

Looking great, I would take this Patrol home if I could

[moore_rb]

Looks really good so far {scratch, itch, scratch}

Regarding Featherfill- I've used it over gelcoat and it is a great (and easy to work with) surfacer. However, it's a polyester product, and I've never used it directly over polyester resin - I'm not sure if the pattern of the glass weave will show through it... ?

I did a patch once one of my corvettes and it was only a small 4inch x 4inch section, so I thought that I could get away with using primer directly over the resin, but after I painted it and wet sanded and buffed out the clear coat, you could still see the pattern of the glass matt through the paint when the sun hit it just right

I was the only one who ever noticed, but still...

If this is an important factor to you, you might want to consider the extra bucks and step up to a sprayable epoxy to put the final surface on your top-

Just my 2 pennies. It would be interesting to know how your completed top will compare to a factory hard top weight-wise...