Morris Minor Owners Club

Hello all,

Time to fit the new hood to the restored convertible. Trouble is the original was in such a state that most of the hood, rail coverings and press-studs had gone, so I'm at a bit of a loss where the hood, and more problemmatically the hood cover, fittings go. I know there is a larger 'lift the dot' fastener at the bottom rear of the side windows that I assume was for the hood to be released from before folding away, and marks on the old rear rail covering imply there were press studs in the 3 recesses on either side (but were these for the hood or the hood cover though?)

So...

... please can someone with a convertible take some photos of all of the locations of the studs, and ideally show them in use with a hood cover in place as well.

Also there seems to be quite a large gap (2-3mm) between the bottom of the (new) front header rail and the top of the windscreen when the hood is locked in with the two wing nut bolts (this is before covering the wooden rail with vinyl) Is this ok? ...or should I put a rubber strip on the bottom of the rail before covering it? Seems to me that despite the weatherstrip it would be best not to have a gap to allow rain to come in. Advice please.

Thanks
Mick

I see you live in Surrey, I live in aldershot if that is close to you, you are more than welcome to come and have a look at my hood and take all the measurement / photos you like... I do not have a hood bag though. pm'd you my number

I would also be interested to see some photos of what it should be like. The hood on mine is the canvas one and the hoodbag has no fasteners at all. I would say it was about a year old when I got the car in 2007. I have no idea if it is the original fitting method.
I have fitted a rubber seal on the underside of the ash header. No so much because of rain but because of draughts-it used to whistle like hell.
This is what it looks like. The strap is just to make sure the hoodbag doesn't blow away.
Regards
Declan[frame][/frame]

As Declan points out the rubber strip is essential more for draughft exclusion than water ingresion sorry i don,t know how to download pics but my header rail has the seal attached to the wood before it is covered with the vinyl its about an inch wide and is quite soft more like a cross between a foam and rubber so as to obtain a good seal,as for the hood bag,mine doesn,t have fasteners to lock it in place but i,ve never had it blown off even on a windy day travelling at 50 mph however if you,re uneasy with it not having fasteners do like Declan does with the straps hope this helps

We haven't as yet fitted the new hood to our convertible because of bad weather. The hood new hood bags do come with fittings but you have to fit these yourself. I asked suppliers why they weren't already fitted to the bag - the answer - no 2 convertibles have the hood fittings in the same place so it's up to you to match what you've got on the car with your new hood bag. I second the request for some pictures of fittings as the ones on our car were in the wrong place it doesn't have the lift the dot near the back window at all!

While we are on the subject, I found fitting a rubber on the inside of the window frame saves the paint being scraped off which used to happen on mine when raising/lowering the hood. The rubber on the strut stops rattling when the hood is folded.
Regards
Declan[frame][/frame]

Now that's a really good idea, thanks.

Declan_Burns wrote:While we are on the subject, I found fitting a rubber on the inside of the window frame saves the paint being scraped off which used to happen on mine when raising/lowering the hood. The rubber on the strut stops rattling when the hood is folded.
Regards
Declan[

Good idea, I also got a racing cycle inner tube and cut into lengths and slipped them onto the frame cross bars, so they don't scrape the tops of the rear side window frames when closing/opening the hood

OK I wanted to fit a hood cover so got a Beige canvas one from ESM which comes with a bag of fittings which you apply yourself.

Now deciding where to put them was the issue so........... avoiding the plastic straps shown above I used 6 press studs and 1 lift the dot fastener (mistake but to late now)

So first fold the hood as shown in the handbook, corners in and 2 folds up and over the top.

On the outside at the bottom of the side windows I simply used the existing location studs for the hood to fasten to by folding the corners back and attaching the cover

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That was actually enough to secure the hood cover in place at 70 mph on the road but, as the hood is vinyl, the cover wanted to ride up so I added 3 more fasteners across the rear to keep the lines straight:

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Finally, though not really needed, I added a fastener at each side on the frame arm cover part to tighten the mechanism down and stop it rattling:

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Soon as I fitted the cover I found these images on the net of a 53 car from a dealers so am now assuming that I got things wrong, Oh well, at least its secure...........

They used the same hood anhcor points that I did at the side so it appears that I was correct there

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But here 'I think' they clipped both sides of the arm cover together and I'm not sure that looks clean?

Plus why not fold the cover under...............

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Along the rear you can see they used no fasteners, but the cover is riding up a bit, mine won't due to the overkill

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