Vinyl roof supplier

Ian gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

I'd be amazed if you could. It'd almost certainly be easier, quicker and probably cheaper to find a trimmer that could cut the vinyl to size/shape.

Since it wasn't a factory option I'd be amazed if anyone offered a kit on such a rare car. However, a proper coach trimmer should be able to make one off the roll.

Why not spend the money doing a proper fettle of the hardtop? Unless one truly wants a 70s vinyl top on a Dart, that is. Am I missing something?

AOL.

A vinyl hard top is so Liberace I actually want this guy to do it, so I can point and laugh.

Having spent a good 20 minutes earlier on pointing out some hard truths to fans of the Austin Princess, I could really do with seeing a pic of a Daimler Dart with a vinyl covered hard top.

Cutting the vinyl to shape or size is trivial. But apparently they also need seams and stitching and stuff when they have to go round very compound curves.

Ian

That is also a possibility under consideration. It's not just a 70s thing, though - thing of Riley RM roofs.

Ian

The whole bloody Dart is Liberace in the extreme.

I think that it could look quite good, if properly done. My Herald hardtop has a vinyl-y sort of effect moulded in (Honeybourne mouldings) and looks quite respectable.

And you are criticising others for being brash, flash, tacky and tasteless?

Love,

Ian

Fuller answer. It might be a lot of time and money, and not much of a fettle at the end of it. It's a fibreglass hardtop, and suffers from (a) cracking of the gel coat and (b) quite serious rippling of the top

- which is probably why the gel coat has cracked.

(a) could be tackled by a full gel strip and rebuild, but that wouldn't do anything for (b), and although some additional stiffening inside might help, I suspect that this particular hardtop will never be great. In particular, it will never look great in anything gloss.

So one plan is to look around for a better hardtop and, in the meantime, vinyl this one. It's only one possibility, and if we can find someone who can make up the vinyl there will be a stage of draping and pinning the material to the fibreglass and assessing how it looks.

Harry Enfield style lectures on "You don't want to do it like that, you want to do it like this" are therefore not particularly useful - though I realise they are very traditional on u.r.c.c!

Ian

Which is what a proper coach trimmer does. Like with seats...

Sounds like just spraying with suitable paint will look like vinyl...;-)

Yup.

Um... maybe...

An E30 and a Range Rover "Classic". Yeah, right I am :-p

He can't be a very good restorer. When my wife's 1275GT Mini was vandalised at a railway station, the local vehicle restorer replaced all of the roof vinyl and retrimmed the Websasto sunroof, using off-the-roll vinyl cloth for the job. What he bodged was putting the rear window back and I had to get a glass fitter to do the job properly.

Maybe your pal should look for someone else to do the work?

OK, thanks. I have coincidentally just heard of an excellent coach trimmer who does classic stuff from a tiny place in my nearest town, so I shall mosey across and ask him.

Ian

Double hedgehog!

Ian

I have learned while researching this that here were spray on vinyls available for this - the restorer chap used them in the distant past. But he thinks they are no longer available - the solvents were apparently pretty potent ...

Ian

He's a bloody good restorer - one of the best I have met. First time I went round he had three E-Types in for full body jobs, and people don't give 'em to just anyone.

That aside, I think you may misunderstand. Replacing a sunroof is fairly trivial: it's a flat bit of hood material which has to be folder over and stuck down. I'm talking about a full vinyl covering for the hard top, which means going round some b-i-g compound curves. Hence the need for initial tailoring, and just as body guys don't generally make interior trim, so they don't generally tailor roofs. I might ask him to fit a hood, but I wouldn't expect him to make one ...

Ian

No, I think you misunderstand.

Uh huh, I know.

"the local vehicle restorer replaced all of the roof vinyl" is the bit that you missed.

Go somewhere that can do the job then.

Body jobs? The skills required to restore bodywork ain't the same as those for coach trimming - and I'd be surprised to find an expert in both.

Whoops. I wonder how the size and profile of that compares to the Dart, though. I suspect it doesn't have nearly as big compound curved sections.

Why? If we can find someone who can make the roof and someone local who can fit it?

Ian