Windscreen - fixtures and fittings

Back on the windscreen; The target is to finish work on the uprights this weekend so I can paint them during the week & move to final assembly next weekend & hopefully coincide with the registration and tax coming through.

Pillars & screen surround:

Adjustment of the uprights to get everything as symmetrical as possible. The whole assembly was off/on the car a 3-4 of times this morning to get the uprights adjusted - one final check with the glass in place - then back to the template for final fit and drilling. I used the natural sight line along the top of the windscreen to the rollbar for a level - doesn't look to bad to me:

 

I prepared the uprights by drilling with holes for the wing mirrors, 5x holes on the leading edge for the windscreen mount & 4x on the trailing edge for door hinges. I decided to set this up for future direction by ensuring I have mounting points for potential doors and half hood before everything is assembled. Once the glass is in there will be limited options for drilling any new mounting holes.

Clecos in top & bottom both sides to hold everything in place then I drilled through the existing upright holes to get the right positioning in the aluminium frame behind:

I wanted a consistent look - button head hex bolts on the uprights, so going for drilled & tapped holes rather than self tappers. The uprights are 4mm holes, the aluminium frame has 3.2mm holes which I then tapped out in situ to ensure everything would line up.

(Still no proper tap set, but ali is soft so I just about got away with an adjustable spanner along with a little WD40 to lubricate):

Mock up of the result - this will all come apart one more time to fit the glass and paint the uprights & only 2 of the 5 windscreen mounting bolts in place:

Top rail half hood fittings:

My intentions for fitting a half hood - I've seen many options fitting to the top rail, I defintely dont want a line of poppers, lift the dot or similar along the top - so going to try something a little different.

These are lift of hinges used on musical cases etc - the idea is if I attach one half to the top rail of the windscreen in three places I can attach the webbing or a centre hood rail  to the 'hook on' part later. 

These will  show above the line of the windscreen rail but -

  1. I think I prefer it over poppers or an awning rail groove

  2. The brackets will be fitted using tapped button head bolts, so I can always remove them later