Fitting the TR3a hood.

[Fireman049]

I have to say that the hood arrangements on both my MGA and Austin Healey '100' are far superior!

The hoods are permanently attached to their frames and all I have to do to erect them is to swing them

up and attach the rear metal bar to two escutcheon's, two turn buckle fasteners then pull the hood forward

and attach to the windscreen with two over-centre fasteners ~ job easily done even in a howling gale!!

 

Tom.

[Dave Larnder]

Tom

 

That´s where I got my idea from with the tensioning bar being pushed back as the last thing, a la the 100/6 I had back in the 60´s, and I agree with you that system was far better than the TR´s. with those two escutcheon plates attached to the rear apron. Mine was the strictly two seater version not the occasional four, which had greater rigidity at the back.

 

Dave

[Lebro]

Have just the same problem - new hood (Moss) much too tight to fit with frame up, so I fit with frame in lower position, then push up - like in the French Video above. I will try removing the fixings on the rear hoop as suggested above, that sounds like it should work. Same problem with a tight tonneau, fixed that by getting onto the car (using hot air from a fan fire to soften the fabric) then once on, I placed the spare wheel on the tonneau between therear of the doors, to streatch it. I left this on for about a week, & it seems to have done the trick.

[2long]

If I am replacing the webbing straps and fitting a new hood, should I just leave off the hood fixing screws and plate altogether on that rearmost crossbar? Is there any reason to have the webbing anchored there?

 

Dan

Edited December 15, 2013 by 2long

[vivdownunder]

Hi Dan,

 

Yes just fit new webbing, using the old webbing as a template. Leave out the 2 x fixing screws per web (and plates) on the crossbar above the rear window,

 

The web fixings aren't necessary on that bar. The webbing was only anchored to the bars so the spacings were repeated each time the original hood was fitted. Without web fixings, the rear bar just manually pushes back into position, reaching its limit when the hood is fully tightened.

 

One thing to watch is to get a new hood with seams matching the old hood. Sometimes they vary and the crossbar spacings have to be changed so the hood sits right. That in turn can disrupt the good fit of the side curtains to the hood..

 

Regards,

 

Viv