63 Ragtop Dad and Lad project.

[tpb_karl]

Looks great!

[richie]

Looks really good now Rob, Donald does good work 

cheers Richie

[BossHogg76]

Looks really good now Rob, Donald does good work 

cheers Richie

Oh he does, hence my combined x2 6 hour round trips to get him involved 

Well on the day of Storm Darragh, i woke at 5am and took the fool hardly decision to go and get the Ragtop. So into the storm i went, under strict instructions from my wife not to waste time chatting when i got up there and to load up turn round and haul ass home. Which is exactly what i did. The Ragtop is now safely tucked up in Northumberland.

An unexpected turn over the last few weeks was thanks to Colin Nicol for the opportunity to buy this Berg 5speed. It has some history with being previously owned by Pete Christie ( Flatfire on here) who sadly passed away during Covid. Colins message when he approached me about it was amazing, and really sums up everything that's good in the Cal Look Community.

So it's now onto the wiring and fit the drivers interior door panel.

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[BossHogg76]

A short update this week for what was about 5 hours of work on 13th December.  Anyway with the lad at school i got stuck into rebuilding the back of the car. Lights back on, number plate light housing and push button lock. We spent some time trying to get the main in, unfortunately the rod we were using snapped 30cm short of the loom getting pulled fully through... annoying. Anyway a couple of pics

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[Felix/DFL]

That looks very 

[BossHogg76]

With the Christmas holidays approaching there has been a big push to get the wiring sorted, whether we make it remains to be seen. We tried to get the wiring loom in last week (13th December) but it got caught up somewhere in the roof line. Jay during the week put in a days work to try and get it in, eventually finding that the roof channel was stuffed with old headliner etc. See the pic below:

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This saturday (22nd December) Daniel and I headed to the workshop and managed 4 hours on the bug, a new bulb holder was fitted into the popes nose. We managed to get the rear lights wiring loom fitted, and made up a rubber gasket for the wing mirror., which meant i could fit the remaining door card, and accessories to the drivers side. Also managed to fit a new deck lid seal in the apron.  So things are moving forward, i've still one day before christmas to get the wiring done, so you never know we might have lights on for christmas.

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[tpb_karl]

Sunday update crew strikes again. Nice to see that progress is being made!

[BossHogg76]

A shock mid-week update. As a break from the Christmas fun and frivolities i decided that making a set of carbon fibre T bars would be a good idea, now whether they get used or not i don't know, but it was a good mini project.

First on the list was to make a small jig so that we had repeatability for all four.

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Next was to order the material which eventually turned up between the Christmas deliveries. Then it was cut to length drill holes and mock things up before bonding them all together. Daniel did a great job supervising, though to be honest with the nastiness of carbon fibre dust and the glue i was using it was better he just did the mock up. Anyway below is the finished product, hopefully get them on this weekend and get more of the wiring done. Oh and i made up a little logo which might be ending up on stickers and work shirts for later in the year.

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[BossHogg76]

And for the weight conscious a bit of a weight saving

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[tpb_karl]

Those are badass!

[richie]

Excellent, they turned out really good 

[BossHogg76]

Excellent, they turned out really good 

Those are badass!

Thanks guys, lets see what they look like fitted.

[FredH17]

Getting along very nice Rob!

These t-bars are very cool.

[BossHogg76]

In the UK the temperatures fell below freezing for a week, but on Friday 10 Jan i headed up to the workshop to get some bits done. The two bits i wanted to get out of the way was re terminating the headlight loom as i had to cut the ends off to thread the wires through the conduit. With that accomplished it was onto trial fitting the carbon fibre T bars Daniel and I had made. I hasten to add the original Hex ended T bars are beautiful, such thick chrome, but we want to put our mark on the car and as I mentioned before a repaint is out of scope, the way we have chosen is the use of carbon fibre and a street strip attitude. On fitting i think they come out better than i anticipated, MrIcka pointed out the fronts maybe a little long, they are the orginal hole placements but i'll have a play next time i'm up and see if i can get the proportions a little better.

Next on the list is wiring up the lucas lights, going to have to buy a tool which i will use once, and then never again  . Hopefully i will get time to do this, and finish off the wiring in the next few weeks.

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[MrIcka]

Looks super cool

[BossHogg76]

Looks super cool

Thanks buddy,

A quick update to keep the sunday updates rolling along. Yesterday (18th Jan 2025) I popped up to play with the electrics. 2 hours rapidly disappeared as i sorted out the wiring loom down to the footwell head light switch, found i had miss labelled some wires, which i eventually sorted. Next up was the lucas barrel termination, i thought i needed a special tool to fit these, as it happened they are soldered on. So with that done the indicators were wired up. On the sunday i taught Daniel how to strip wire and use the heat shrink solder connector, this was to extend the panel lights for the new autometer gauges. Theres no really much wiring left to do, i probably need to pull the light switch out so i can identify the terminals as i'm having trouble reading them even with a torch and my glasses on (getting older is pish)  

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[karl h]

cool

[andrewlandon67]

Man, those carbon t bars look fantastic! I'd absolutely rock a set on my '67 if I didn't want to draw attention to my crooked rear bumper mounts... I can't wait to see where you guys take this little beauty next!

[BossHogg76]

Man, those carbon t bars look fantastic! I'd absolutely rock a set on my '67 if I didn't want to draw attention to my crooked rear bumper mounts... I can't wait to see where you guys take this little beauty next!

Thanks Andrew much appreciated. we're rocking on at the moment, electrics is slowing things up a bit at the moment...and the cold. Hopefully will have the lights on soon, it'll be another nice step forward.

[BossHogg76]

So in the last week a big box of goodies arrived from Gene Berg, a pile of parts to to allow the 5speed to be fitted. I know that some people don't like the yellow mounts, but for the moment they're going in. Jay at the end of last week (31st Jan) had the gearbox mocked up. So that should be in this week and that apart from the engine should be the last of the big stuff done. That leaves Daniel and I to complete the wiring, do a test and hope we don't blow all the fuses or burn the car down. Other things include plumbing in the fuel system, buying a passenger seat, then play with some carbon fibre. One silly piece we made was BossHogg Speedshop sticker. we don't make anything you can buy, but we thought it would look good....workshirts and hoodies to follow.

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[BossHogg76]

An Early update today, my not so little helper has been avoiding the cold, but work continues. Jay got the gearbox fitted this week so that's a big tick off the box. When bleeding the brake he noticed that flexis are collapsing so that's another issue to solve later in the year. I wanted to get another bit of work ticked off so (8th feb) i managed to get the wiring progressed enough to get some lights working. The headlights are different brightnesses at the moment, so i need to sort that and i think the rear lights are actually lighting up the brake filaments. but it was cool to see things light up.

That's it for this week

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[leec]

Just be careful with that rear gearbox mount (bell housing end) I had a similar one on my oval and for some reason made putting the engine in an absolute pain. Changed it to a different rear mount and engine removal and installation infinitely easier. When I compared the mounts the holes were drilled at a slightly different height.

[BossHogg76]

Thanks Lee will keep and eye on that, this one has been used before so hopefully it works

[BossHogg76]

The latest work has been on the electrics, it's been a bit of a fight. I wired the lights for the gauges in series and the voltage drop was so severe that i'm going to have to redo that in parallel and i think i'll change he bulbs for LEDs to help with the power consumption.

Next on the list was the indicators, this turned into an epic as i traced bad earths, no earths, crossed wires and all kinds of buffoonery. In the end I got them flash when they need to and the headlights to work correctly as well. As i write this i've just remembered i should have checked the brake light. i have a feeling before I start that I'll need a new pressure switch..

That's it for now, the list is getting shorter week on week.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DGa6gwhsVQN/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

[BossHogg76]

This weekend was Daniels 10th birthday...where does the time go? Anyway we came back from London on saturday and got stuck into some work today (2 Mar 2025). The main thing we wanted to sort was the dash board lights, this has proven to be a problem last time, but we managed to get it sorted by wiring in parallel, there is a loose wire in one of the bullb holders which we can sort later. The other thing we found was that the bulbs in the warning lights were so bright that you couldn't see the colours when illuminated, so i bought some LED bulbs to go into them and the main beam bulb illuminates correctly. As i write this i've just remembered i need to do the indicator light,...a job for next week.

I've ordered some stuff to make moulds, so hopefully in a few weeks we may have a little carbon fibre project on the go.

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