Removeable hardtop

[63-4drpost]

nascar bird

I am building a replica of the 1959 Daytona winner, John Beauchamp's car. they were built by Hoolman& Moody. they had removable tops, called "zipper top". I have a roll cage, so will not need any more reinforcing. great idea you have, be sure to post pictures as you build it. Henry

[3dpsycho]

removeable top

I see lots of references on the differences in frames, but not anything on how to go about it, where to cut, how to make a carson type foldable soft top out of conduit (or anything similar), kits, or anything on this what seems to be an easy car to do it to?... there used to be a site that offered instructions and templates you could order for 1961-1964's, but all the email links are not valid.
any help in that direction would be increadible...

also, I have heard that the 1958 (which I have and for the most part solid) was a tank in construction and a stronger setup than the convertibles and the younger ones in the way they were built... so would I really need to have someone weld anything? (I don't really relish having to tear pieces off in order to weld support pieces in)

[YellowRose]

Removeable hardtop

Hi Brian,

By now, you should have received the .pdf file in email of Bill van Ess that JohnG posted some time back, on the structural differences of the '58-'60 Squarebirds. Here is the link to that file that JohnG provided..
http://users.wpi.edu/~goulet/TBird/S...ameDifferences

As that article by him says, you do not need to re-enforce the '58-'59 and early '60, if they are rust free or pre-late '60 production Bird. (I hope I read that right!) They already have those re-enforcements in place. He said it was only in the later '60 production runs when they left them out. The whole article should help you. Here is a link that should give you a lot more information, including that of the guy who made a removable hardtop out of his hard top Tbird. You will see the pictures there, and maybe contact information also. There are a lot of posts about this subject on this forum.

http://www.squarebirds.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=882&highlight=removable+hardtop

You might see if you can find the Chip Foose video that shows them modifying a '64 Tbird to a convertible. This was in 2005, I think, and is referenced in one of the threads. Here is his website, which is down for maintenance at the moment. http://www.chipfoose.com/

[dgs]

If it were me, I don't think I'd cut up a perfectly good and solid hardtop to make a convertible, but it's your car.

My '60 is a mostly solid California car, but the outer rockers are rusted and there's quite a bit of chassis flex as it goes down the road. I think you'll want to add some reinforcements.

Foose did reinforce the chassis of that '64 and one of the members (Ken Harkema (sp?)) of the Squarebirds Yahoo! group was a consultant on that built, telling them where to add stiffeners. If you can find him, he may be able to help out.

[fomoco59]

Foose did reinforce the chassis of that '64 and one of the members (Ken Harkema (sp?)) of the Squarebirds Yahoo! group was a consultant on that built, telling them where to add stiffeners. If you can find him, he may be able to help out.

http://www.kensklassic.com/ Ken Harkema's website

[3dpsycho]

hardtop conversion

Talked to Ken and he might be able to send me pictures of what the insides of what the convertible looks like in the trunk.
I have access to someone who is parting out their convertible and was going to sell me all the pieces reasonably (minus the hydralics... which a manual top is fine with me)

So basically I am trying to figure out if there would be a lot of tough to do body work surrounding this....

I thought somewhere I heard that the brace that held the convertible frame was something that was bolted in, which would make it a ton easier if I could get a hold of that in addition... if someone had some pictures of the inside trunk area for the convertible (and some inside pics of the hardtop as well since my hardtop in another location from me so I can compare) and can tell me if it is bolted in, that would be great!

Thank you all so far for your feedback.