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After-market Surrey tops


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I'm looking to buy a TR5 and have found one for sale, but without a Surrey top. As this is an option I quite fancy, what's the concensus about the after-market items that are on sale from the likes of Moss, Revington, Rimmers etc?

 

For example:Are they any good? Are they the same one, different vendor? Is the perspex back window OK? etc

 

many thanks

Ray

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Hi Ray, I looked into this quite a bit when trying to find a surrey for my 4, Luckily I managed to get an original surrey rear window, soft top and hardtop for a reasonable price.

I went and looked at the Rimmer one in fibreglass and it seemed quite good although I think a certain amount of fettling is required. From memory Revington's do two fibre glass and perspex rear windows, 1 is not reinforced and therefore you need a roll bar and the other one is. The perspex is i think aircraft quality. You then need a soft top and hood frame £ 200 and  an aluminium hardtop from them is £ 700 approx with no paint or head lining.

All in all budget at least £ 1200 if you want the lot. Original surrey windows and tops seem to go for more than this if you can find one.

The racing/ rally boys tend to change the glass in their windows for perspex both to save weight and for safety.

hope this helps

 

 

:D

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  • 2 years later...

Hi Ray, I find myself in exactly the same situation as you when you started the topic!

 

Have you had any luck? What setup did you go for?

 

Now to everybody, are original Surrey Tops difficult to find on the second hand market? What kind of price is to expect?

 

thank you for your replies

 

Pierre

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Hi Ray, I find myself in exactly the same situation as you when you started the topic!

 

Have you had any luck? What setup did you go for?

 

Now to everybody, are original Surrey Tops difficult to find on the second hand market? What kind of price is to expect?

 

thank you for your replies

 

Pierre

 

Pierre,

There is a Surrey set up for sale on this forum, look in 'buy sell trade'. Prices vary enormously and you will be lucky to get one for under £1000 and then it will need restoration. Some have gone on ebay for ludicrous prices £2000 £3000 even. They do however come up not infrequently but bear in mind that the Surrey rear glass is unobtainable new so if you break it you are down to perspex.

 

Hope this helps

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Bonjour Pierre/Brett,

 

Ok, so that's the French bit done.................Wow, this is such a long time ago! I've had a few beers since then.

 

After Rex's helpful contribution I decided to wait until my local supplier (TR Bitz) had a decent original one in stock and I bought from them, having viewed and discussed.

 

So long as you don't want the hard top panel (particularly aluminium) then the rest was available for £1000-ish last year. However, I've seen prices increase significantly this year already.

 

As always I think patience is a virtue but we're not always patient are we?

 

Ray

Edited by raydrink
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Thanks Ian for the info about the one for sale. The thing is, we have not yet agreed with the slow seller of the TR5 I'm interested in (that has no Surrey top), so I can't really buy the Surrey top before the car "just in case" at that kind of money!

 

I'm amazed at the prices Surrey tops reach, and I have to say I wouldn't mind buying a remade copy if they existed. Do they not? I would be glad to join in if someone was willing to have a small batch of these remade. (But then again, that's if I buy the surrey-top-less TR5 in question, and not another one wich would have it...)

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Thanks Ian for the info about the one for sale. The thing is, we have not yet agreed with the slow seller of the TR5 I'm interested in (that has no Surrey top), so I can't really buy the Surrey top before the car "just in case" at that kind of money!

 

I'm amazed at the prices Surrey tops reach, and I have to say I wouldn't mind buying a remade copy if they existed. Do they not? I would be glad to join in if someone was willing to have a small batch of these remade. (But then again, that's if I buy the surrey-top-less TR5 in question, and not another one wich would have it...)

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Or have the 'other website' open in a separate window, highlight the address in the address bar and then right mouse click and 'copy' the address.

 

Then click on the insert link box just above where you will be typing. It is the 6th box from the left, next to the smiley face emoticons box.

 

Delete what is there and paste the web address you copied.

 

Click on OK.

 

You will then have the opportunity to add text to show in your post but giving others the opportunity to mouse click on the link to the other website.

 

Click on OK.

 

Job done.

 

Surrey top on Ebay

 

David

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For the reasons mentionned above, I did bid on this one but nonetheless had a look at the end of the auction, and there still was a hot competition in the last seconds!

 

All the better if Surrey tops come down to more "rational" prices!

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It would seem that the prices of Surrey Tops has returned to normality.

 

£970 on ebay for this one seems like a good price for this one. Even after the shipping costs to USA this will be less than many sold on ebay recently.

 

Agreed it's less than what others have gone for ( though double my most recent purchase a couple of years ago - those were the days :rolleyes: ). I wouldn't read too much meaning into this particular sale, though, as I couldn't find it searching ebay worldwide under " TR250", "TR5", " TRIUMPH TR", " Surrey " and " Surry ". Thus a good sector of the market may well not have known it was available :unsure:

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  • 12 years later...

Hello guys,

I have a TR5 with Surrey Top also with Surrey soft top. the vinyl soft top only seems gp close to fitting if left in sun for quite a time , So when it is raining and you need to cover the car, forget fitting soft top - impossible. Soft top is 10 years old and hardly used, so I am wondering is there is some shrinkage..

About to purchase replacement from Rimmer which will be a better fit? Anyone had same problem ?

. As I live in Australia you take a punt on product.

Cheers

 

Tony

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Hi Guys, 

Have you seen the topic on the TR4/4a forum re Honeybourne Surrey top? Lots of discussion. I have recently purchased a rear backlight frame with the window untrimmed direct from Honeybourne who were most helpful, so that I can use open out the window size to more like an original. Look at Stuarts post/pictures and you cant tell that it not original without tapping the Perspex window.

Rich

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PS. try Don Hoods who offer a selection of surrey tops in all the usual soft top materials, inc. Double duck, at reasonable prices. Rich

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Hi Tony,

before you press the BUY button.

 

How do you fit the hood.

1st - Engage the front end

2nd - engage the back end

 

Is the back end where you struggle.

I  use some curved pins inserted in the rear rail (in the vinyl) to help guide the spigot stubs into position..   see pic below

I also have some knurled brass screws to tighten it all up when fitted.  see pic

Roger

 

 

 

P1030177a.jpg

P1030721a.jpg

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There is a better mod to the back rail.

Uses these Click fasteners.

Put the two catches in the rear frame and the pins in the back of the hood. These are metric so either re-tap the stiffener or turn a nipple on the end of a 1/4 uni set screw.

The rear hood then just clicks in. To release press the buttons on the fasteners. No messing aligning nuts when it is raining.

The other mod is to attach the front of the hood to a TR6 header rail. This is more complicated in that the frame needs modifying as the original fits there 6 the header rail attaches and the top of the screen frame may need modifying to take the fixings unless it already has a 6 screen frame. As yours is a 250 you probably already have the correct mounts.

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I acquired an original back light and ali lid for the 5 a while back but as I fancied fitting a roll hoop as well looks like the Revington one would be the way to go for me especially as the Revington roll hoop doesn't impact on seat travel.   Andy do you know if  your modification will work on a Revington backlight? 

To put this into context this work is currently done in  my 'virtual' rebuild world, the world were the spares catalogue is your best friend, you can carryout all of the body repairs yourself at virtually nil cost, you fit all the nice shiny bits the you ever wanted, and finish with a car that you would struggle to fit a fag paper in the door gaps, completed in a year all for about 8 grand.

Reality will be no doubt somewhat more protracted and more expensive !

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I suspect with the thickness of the Fibre rear frame or the Revington one with a roll bar there wouldnt be enough depth on the catch section to work.

Stuart.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 11/21/2019 at 10:02 AM, Andy Moltu said:

There is a better mod to the back rail.

Uses these Click fasteners.

Put the two catches in the rear frame and the pins in the back of the hood. These are metric so either re-tap the stiffener or turn a nipple on the end of a 1/4 uni set screw.

The rear hood then just clicks in. To release press the buttons on the fasteners. No messing aligning nuts when it is raining.

The other mod is to attach the front of the hood to a TR6 header rail. This is more complicated in that the frame needs modifying as the original fits there 6 the header rail attaches and the top of the screen frame may need modifying to take the fixings unless it already has a 6 screen frame. As yours is a 250 you probably already have the correct mounts.

Bought a couple of these click fasteners as Andy suggested and they work a treat.

Much easier to fit than the thumb screws and look quite neat from the inside too.

I've already carried out the header rail mod but I used a late Spitfire header rail.

With these two mods fitting the Surrey top is much quicker and more secure.

Thanks for the heads up Andy.

John W

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Mike,

you need to make a small mounting plate, I used 2mm aluminium.

Firstly I removed the steel insert and drew round the outer profile onto a piece of 3mm hardboard.

Cut this out and drill the two mounting holes and a 20mm hole in the centre.

Fit the fastener to this and fix back into the surrey frame. You can then juggle this around untill you are happy with the position.

Once happy you can use this as a template to mark out the aluminium, I then covered this with vinyl to blend in better.

The pins are more tricky. They are M6 so I ran a 1/4 UNF die down them, but because M6 is smaller than 1/4" they are not a good fit into the rear bar.

I have bought some 1/4 UNF SS bolts and in the process of making some new pins.

Hope this helps.

John

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