63 Ragtop Dad and Lad project.

[BossHogg76]

I realise that the trend is to post pretty pics on Instagram, i do it myself and the days of long threads documenting projects is probably a thing of the past. However I did it for the 67 which is now about 11 years ago when i did that, and i think this would be a nice way to chronicle this project should Daniel ever want to read it. The 67 has evolved over many years and i fear that if i tinker anymore i will lose the vision i had for it when I built it, which was a Cal Looker with a bit of a punch that i could drive to shows in Europe and occasionally take down the strip. My lad who is now 9 is taking more interest in cars. (thankfully as he is train obsessed and has been for years) and in particular loved going to the Melbourne Drags near York. Now i could make the 67 more focused, but i took the decision to look for another project.

I've wanted a rag top for a number of years and at the start of 2023 took the decision to stop mucking about and take this seriously, The Hanz kindly looked in Europe for a suitable candidate but nothing came up, so i took the brave step (for my wallet) to ring everyones favourite purveyor of Gasser Garage Goodies, a phone calll, a return phone call 30 mins later. The oh shit moment of this looks like it's reality dependent on photos and few weeks messaging and waiting and we had a date arranged to pick it up. Given our locations in the UK, a half way spot was chosen and on Thursday 25th April the deal was done and the vehicle swapped hands.

So what had i bought? well I've the ex-Scott Bakken The One replica which is ex DKP i believe. It's a very solid base for what I have in mind, and just enough work to allow my son and I put our own spin on the car. It will not be returned to being a The One replica, but its heritage in terms of colour way will be retained, and we will put our own subtle twist on it.  I'm sure people will have their own views on what I should be doing with it, but please... this is a father and son project that I hope we have lots of fun doing and Daniel can learn how to hold a torch properly 😁

So anyway onto the pics.

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[BossHogg76]

So now it is safely locked away in a secluded part of Northumberland the list has started, parts are arriving and after school monday 29th April. Daniel and i went up to see it, taking with us tools a jack (those low profile lightweight jacks, really aren't light weight) and some replacement front wheels to replace the ones fitted. There was nothing wrong with the wheels, just that they don't hold air, and as i have some  in stock...why not get Daniel to fit them. So that's what we did, Daniel gave the ragtop his approval and did ask whether we could fit Lamborghini seats, a careful "we'll think about it" meaning No, seemed to satisfy him. So new wheels fitted to the front a quick look over things and we were both smiling. We then moved onto carrying out some CAD (Card Board Aided) design to start on making a new dash plate. Once mocked up we could see that it needs to capture the line of the glove box opening and mirror that. Unfortunately Daniel ran out of enthusiasm so rather than sicken him it was wrap up time and head home with a Chippie tea. Mainly chosen to annoy the wife who had just come in from the gym.

And some pics:

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So that's the start of what i hope will be a fun adventure. The plan is that it is out in 2025, the engine is going to be the crux in that aspiration i think.  

[Catbox]

Looks like an awesome start to a father son project!

[aussie]

Looking forward to this! Miss these threads 

[Eddie DVK]

Rob,
I am glad you are posting on here.
We could use a good blog on here.

I don t have instagram, so much better to do on here.

Well the start is a good car, enjoy the time with your son.

Keep posting

Regards Eddie

[richie]

Nice one Rob    being an old fart i don't do instagram etc so appreciate when people take time to share there projects on forums still

[openroad_]

Thanks for sharing looking forward to the thread! Good luck with the build.

[Larry S]

great project and getting to do it with your son is amazing. You both will have many great memories from the build.
Larry

[BossHogg76]

Thanks everyone, hopefully there should be some updates next weekend, assuming suppliers start getting me the parts i need.

[richie]

Thanks everyone, hopefully there should be some updates next weekend, assuming suppliers start getting me the parts i need.

What size turbo did you order?

[wolfswest]

Great, we need more posts like this and I can relate to the fact your son wants to shim in with some "marvelous" ideas like the Lambo seats...    haha, I had a few of the same conversations with my boys in the garage.
Thx Rob, make the lounge great again!

Dem

[BossHogg76]

Thanks for the comments guys, this should be fun, Richie i bought a dustbin size one, the spool is measured on a sundial  

So how to get your son hooked on this,..well take him to the drags. So this weekend (11 May 2024) we went to Melbourne Raceway (York) to run the 1/8th mile. Much stress after work on friday, picking up the trailer, loading it, and early Saturday we as a family (even Sarah) headed to the drags. The sun was splitting the concrete, and everything looked to be set for a peachy day,....so obviously something went wrong. In this case i got that much wheel hop on my firsr run that i loosened an oil line, resulting in an exhibition of the size of my sump as i drained it down the end of the strip, back up the return road and back to the fire up lane before it dropped the rest of the system. At this point my wallet was puckering as I have only about 6 weeks to go until the 67 goest to EBI. So the 67 was loaded up after one run and we headed home after watching a few of the RYWB's, on getting home i found some oil, and the loose fitting, nipped that up, refilled and primed the system, did a little prayer and fired it up. It was all good and i breathed a sigh of relief.

If nothing else this has reinforced my decision to do this project. The 67 has too many good memories and emotional ties to screw it up. Anyway here's a couple of pics while I sort out what we did on Sunday.

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[BossHogg76]

So onto Sunday (12th May) and I had to actually get a win on the board, (hold on i had actually beaten the golf i was paired with as I was leaking oil everywhere). But anyway I wanted to keep the momentum moving on the Ragtop, if i let things slip, then interest wanes, so whilst it's not healthy on the bank balance having small wins every week or so, keeps Daniels and my interest. There's a reason the 67 was originally done in 12 months, my utter inability to undertake long term projects.

So today i spent the morning cutting the carbon fibre for the dashboard, no pics as it's still a work in progress, then in the afternoon we headed to BossHogg's Speedshop off site location. Armed with a box of goodies, a boot full of tools and the piece of carbon to tweak to fit, Daniel and I put in a couple of hour. Ok so i put in a couple of hours, Daniel did one and then played on his Switch for the remainder, still that's one less hour of screen time.

So today the passenger door handle and radio aerial was put on by Daniel, and the steering column was bolted in place as it had been swinging in the breeze. The door handle striker unfortunately doesn't line up with the lock mech. handily i have a full set of reclaimed handles to pick up at EBI, so i can sort that later. However it gave Daniel a job today and he did well, not one scratch on the high speed finish.  He also mocked up the lucas indicators, they will need bolting in properly when the wiring loom is replaced . So that's this weeks update, pics below:

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[andrewlandon67]

Cutting pieces of carbon fiber for the dash you say? I like where I think this is headed... Can't wait to see the end results!

[BossHogg76]

Cutting pieces of carbon fiber for the dash you say? I like where I think this is headed... Can't wait to see the end results!

Well you're in luck  . So as the original dash had been removed to provide templates for The One rebuild, so I'm minus a dashboard, which opened up opportunities for a bit of artistic license, I thought about the original black plexi-glass, I even found a black plexi-glass with glitter in that i thought might give a cool '70s vibe, but in the end i went for carbon fibre. The gauges come from Autometer and annoyingly they all are the Black signature series apart from the Oil Pressure gauge which they don't do in that style, so i've got a slightly different bezel on that one. If i can find a busted 52mm gauge with the bezel i need i might try some surgery to swap them.

Now the key to keeping a 9yo involved is making sure you have things to readily bolt on, to keep the interest going. So to make sure we had something to do this weekend, i decided to make the dashboard afterwork. Now i still need to drill new fixing holes in the right hand side and perfect the corner radiuses, along with mounting the switches and lights, but it's 90% there and we have something to bolt up on Saturday morning. The final thing i need to sort out is the space on the far right, on the original The One this was an interior light as can be seen in the second pic, now i can either copy that and i don't think it'll look bad or come up with something else....remote shift light???

Anyway that's it for today.

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[richie]

Rob, these are really good for finishing the edges on carbon sheet etc, removes the un-evenness of the fibers that are left when cutting it normally and leaves it nice and neat

https://www.easycomposites.co.uk/permagrit-small-sanding-block

[BossHogg76]

Brilliant thanks Richie it was something I was looking to address and was wondering about a rubber finishing strip. But as I'm doing a carbon cover on the glove box as well I think it would look a bit naff on that.

[andrewlandon67]

Cutting pieces of carbon fiber for the dash you say? I like where I think this is headed... Can't wait to see the end results!

Well you're in luck  . So as the original dash had been removed to provide templates for The One rebuild, so I'm minus a dashboard, which opened up opportunities for a bit of artistic license, I thought about the original black plexi-glass, I even found a black plexi-glass with glitter in that i thought might give a cool '70s vibe, but in the end i went for carbon fibre. The gauges come from Autometer and annoyingly they all are the Black signature series apart from the Oil Pressure gauge which they don't do in that style, so i've got a slightly different bezel on that one. If i can find a busted 52mm gauge with the bezel i need i might try some surgery to swap them.

Now the key to keeping a 9yo involved is making sure you have things to readily bolt on, to keep the interest going. So to make sure we had something to do this weekend, i decided to make the dashboard afterwork. Now i still need to drill new fixing holes in the right hand side and perfect the corner radiuses, along with mounting the switches and lights, but it's 90% there and we have something to bolt up on Saturday morning. The final thing i need to sort out is the space on the far right, on the original The One this was an interior light as can be seen in the second pic, now i can either copy that and i don't think it'll look bad or come up with something else....remote shift light???

Anyway that's it for today.

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Oooh, I like the idea of a remote shift light, keeps the spirit of the car alive while making it a bit more modern and unique which fits with the carbon dash concept. I can't wait to see it installed, it's gonna look great!

[Stephen schmidt]

Very cool that you're reviving this car!

[BossHogg76]

Very cool that you're reviving this car!

Thanks Stephen

Onto this weekends work. So on Monday i have made up the prototype panel (note the change in name more on this later) and had it almost complete apart from switch position and where i was going to put the warning light. So saturday morning (18th May 2024) Daniel and i headed out to get things fitted. Daniel ably assisted with the allen key as we bolted the dask plate in place, this allowed me to pick up a couple of missing bolt holes and sort out where the bolts on the right hand side were going to go. A bit of mucking around, including having to drop the steering column and remove the panel to drill the switch holes, we had the dash in place with gauges and switches fitted. Daniel even practiced his launches. though maybe a seat will help. (see pic below)

The first observation was.....the rev counter is not aligned to the steering column (see white line on the pic below to show correct position), so i'm going to have to re-make it as my OCD can't cope with that. It's no bad thing as some of the gel coat has chipped off the edges of the panel so this re-make will allow me to perfect the process and get a better product at the end.

The other simply bolt in place job that i was going to get Daniel to do was to fit the cruiser pedal....yeah that's not a bolt on job, but handily i have some talented friends who will get it sorted over the next few weeks when i lift the carpet. So not a big update, but some progress made. Excuse the finger prints over the panel it does look a lot better when clean. Next week i'll head up and make a new one and get it bolted in while the lad is at football.

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[BossHogg76]

Ok so this is the longest running dash project ever. When i put the first panel we made in, i wasn't happy that the rev counter wasn't central with the steering wheel. So mk2 was made and we got it fitted today, there are some aspects i'm not 100% happy with, but i could spend all summer mucking on with this so a decision was made to stick with the current version. Another addition was a Momo Prototipo Heritage steering wheel, the horn will be changed for a Wolfsburg crest one in time, but i like the look. The final thing to do is to add the warning lights which will be put as shown in the pic below with the turquoise dots on it. Finally Jay came to the rescure with an OG fuel tank, that'll be away for blasting and powder coating soon, and add a VDO electric fuel sender.

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Warning Light Positions

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New Fuel Tank

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[BossHogg76]

Not really an update, more of a post to capture some research. So this bug originally was built with  Bery 5 speed, then was changed to a KCR transmission when it was put on the track. What happened after it was returned to the street is a bit of a mystery i'm trying to uncover. A message to KCR on facebook said that that used to stamp the early boxes with KCR just above the starter motor. So i went hunting, all i found was a "C" but more hunting round i found Scott had signed the side plate at some point. Carlos from DKP has kindly shared Scotts email and i've sent him a message, unfortunately no reply to date. Hopefully i can find out what's fitted without pulling the whole thing out. If you know what it is please let me know

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[BossHogg76]

(15th Jun 2024) My not so little buddy football training has been moved to saturdays at the moment which has hit Dad Lad time, but with the work on at the moment being a little boring it's not a bad thing. I'm currently waiting for EBI to happen so i can pick up parts during the weekend which he'll be able to fit. In the meantime it's on with the more mundane tasks. The first was fitting the Lucas warning lights to go with the Lucas style switches, as in a previous post I've positioned these above the gauges in line with the switches to fill in the gap in the upper panel. The second job was to remove all the rivnuts, from the firewall, i was prepared for a drilling nightmare, but found that they were more like a UK house cavity wall fitting than a rivnut. So 20 mins with a set of snips and brute force had them removed, certainly easier than the hour of drilling i had envisaged. The final job was to pull up the carpet in the drivers footwell, i can say it was well sealed with glue on each over lap. A bit of a fight and i had it out of the way. This is being done to allow an early style cruiser pedal to be fitted, it adds nothing to the function, I just like the style.

So that's it for the moment, the firewall will be repaired this week, so hopefully next weekend the lad and I will get the chance to prime and paint the firewall in black. We also might get into removing the wiring as a new loom is going in, so we have a known entity to work with.

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[BossHogg76]

Trying to keep the tempo of something every week to keep progress going Thanks to Jay for carrying out some machining and welding to fit an early cruiser pedal. I really like the look of the linkage on these. The firewall is next.

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[FredH17]

Great project Rob!

Love the dash you’ve made, looks very cool!

I’ll look over here more often to keep the forum alive.
Projects like these are best to follow on a place like this!

Grtz Fred

[BossHogg76]

Thanks Fred  much appreciated.

So after returning from EBI full of ideas and just a little tired after a fairly full on weekend it was back into the Ragtop Project. So first on the list was to sort out the glovebox, one sourced from Dennis Kruis fitted the bill, and will ulitmately be painted the correct white, but for this week a cover panel had to be made in carbon to match the dashboard. So my not so little helper and i cracked to it, and over a couple of nights knocked something up, this meant we had something to fit on saturday.

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[BossHogg76]

So to saturday and it was up to the secret Northumberland base to get some work done. Plans were to fit the glove box, a new wing mirror courtesy of Dennis again and picked up during EBI,  paint the fire wall, after Jay and Mike had filled in the various holes that had been drilled in it. The glove box lid surprisiingly fitted ok, we need to add some washers to the left had side to get it lined up better. but i think that it finishes off the dashboard. This will also come off for painting at a later date.

By the time i got round to the wing mirror Daniel had headed off to play with Mikes dog and then a bit of Nintendo switch, which left me to wrestle the old mirror off. Then do some drilling for the new mirror mounts, not nerve wracking at all, by the time i got that done, Daniel was ready to spin some spanners and help again. As you can see we had some laughs... probably a fart joke. 

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[BossHogg76]

and finally some pics of the completed....mocked up dash panel. Thanks for reading stay frosty and consider posting your own project.

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[Stephen schmidt]

Keep it up!

[BossHogg76]

Thanks Stephen, we have a goal and i hope we'll get there.

So not everything has to be oily and greasy, and this week we decided to fit an early rear view mirror and sun visor. However as you will know the bolt pattern is different, so we will need an adaptor, one option would be to make one by hand, the other would be to try 3d printing and a bit of rapid prototyping. Given that this a learning new skills project we decided on the later.

I have fusion 360 which in the free form is perfect for what we need, a few you tube videos later and we had an idea on how to do it. First we needed a template to upload, so a bit of tracing round the base and picking up the mounting holes we had something to start with.

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This was then uploaded to Fusion 360, first you pick up some basic features as calibration point and then adjust the sketch to size from these. We used the holes, but first learning how to use a vernier calliper.

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From there was the boring task of tracing round the shape and picking up the mounting holes. Once that was done it was time to turn it into something 3d, so some extrusion adding in the holes and we had a model.

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Now we just have to wait for it to be printed and hope the measurements are correct.