Half Tonneau

Actually some make them already for Convertible D's here is my car with it covering the top. You can see that the top is somewhat more substantial so it needs a cover if you want to hide the mechanism.  Most times I don't use it as it does take time in  a downpour to remove. If you look at pick two below you can see the protruding pins so that the tenax fasteners click on to hold the cover in place.

Here it is on a speedster from Bob's build as I mentioned above Jim, the base of the top has the tenax pins holding it on the body and when you put the cover on it you use the tenax fastener to hold it in place.

BTW I like your rear seat cover area... nice.

Ray is your passenger mirror functional.  It looks like it is mounted differently than the driver's.  I have a passenger mirror, but have not mounted it.  When we hold it in same place the driver's mirror is mounted on the door, it is not very functional.

Add a small spacer between the back of the mirror head and the mirror base this allows for additional pivot radius. You'll need a longer bolt too.

Greg, it is very functional, IMO, but without being a broken record I adjust it to remove the blind spot only, as my roadster top is a bit higher to see over and I sit really low in the car.  I do not adjust it to see the side of the car, some may like that but that is not the main reason for this penny sized mirror.

As you can see Henry installed it at an angle rather straight in line and they work for me.  

With Alan's suggestion you could have the most adjustability I would think.  Listen to Master Yoda, oh I mean Alan.

+1 on Alan's spacer method. I only needed a small amount of spacing to dial in my passenger side mirror.

I sorted out my passenger mirror by ordering a convex glass for it.  That gives me a wide angle view out the passenger side.

I have Raydyot mirrors, so ordering a convex mirror might be easier for me.

@IaM-Ray posted:

Actually some make them already for Convertible D's here is my car with it covering the top.

Top boots are common  to convertibles. Every manufacturer that I know of offered them if they were not included with the car. Until you posted the photo of Bob's car had I never seen one on a Speedster. Seems like a fitted boot would be common and not the useless half tonneau.

I never liked it

Convex Aero mirror https://sierramadrecollection....-356B-T5-p18327.html

@Alan Merklin posted:

Convex Aero mirror https://sierramadrecollection....-356B-T5-p18327.html

That looks like only the head I think it wasn’t on the original option list .  Just kidding

My full tonneau became a top boot looking a lot like Bob’s IM-6, but my forward edge drops down just forward of the roll bar uprights, gets folded up a few times and tucked under onto the rear seat, so it looks nice and neat - more like a top cover than a tonneau.  I’ll snap a Photo later on and post it, but it finishes off the car’s “look” nicely.  I also have a rear window set into the shape of the roll bar so I ran Velcro along the bottom edge of that window and then a corresponding Velcro on to of the tonneau to hold them together and not sag.  Worked great after three tries of different adhesives til I got one that really sticks.

@Jim Gilbert - Madison, Mississippi posted:

Top boots are common  to convertibles. Every manufacturer that I know of offered them if they were not included with the car. Until you posted the photo of Bob's car had I never seen one on a Speedster. Seems like a fitted boot would be common and not the useless half tonneau.

I never liked it

$2700 replacement cost.

When I found out, I called OK Foreign and told them I’d buy every one they had. They laughed. “It’s the first thing that goes on a Cabriolet.”

Works just like the one Jim made, only a 968 has two access doors to the trunk on the parcel shelf (that replaces the “rear seats” because Cabs don’t have a C pillar for a shoulder belt anchor) The boot tucks behind those doors and they shut over it.

OK, Pictures!

Here's the back 1/3 of my full tonneau.  I've had it attached and zipped up covering the whole cockpit exactly two times in twenty years.  The top is stowed underneath, along with a custom holder for my side windows (that looks like a really big wallet with separate, padded compartments for each window).  Once stowed, you'd never know there's anything in there.

A shot from the passenger quarter side.  It has a velcro closure so I can fit it around the roll bar and close it, then snap it to the body.

It has pockets for the head rests which just fold down as shown.  The remainder of the tonneau is folded up and then tucked under to sit on the rear seat, forming the front wall of the rear seat area.  You can also see the Velcro at the bottom of the roll bar window (which keeps the rear wind buffeting at bay).  The frame around the roll bar window is the same channel used in car doors to hold/guide the door glass up and down.  It comes in 6' - 8' lengths at auto glass shops.

This is "Industrial Strength" Velcro but it releases pretty easily, all things considered.  Get it started and then part it along the length with your finger - Zip!

All in all, the Tonneau used this way has made for a really nice, finishing element to the car.

Gordon, your car is really neat.

@edsnova posted:

Gordon, your car is really neat.

X2.  Yup.

Thanks, guys.  I like her, too.

I'm about the same as others on here who like to tinker.  We see something on someone else's car and think, "I could do something like that on my car!" and then figure out how to do it, maybe with a special twist or two.  

It's all a day in the life of a Speedstah Guy........

(and today I'm painting the backsplash in the kitchen.    

@Jim Gilbert - Madison, Mississippi Was the starting point for your project one of those crescent-moon-shaped things, or a true half-tonneau like the one on the silver speedster in the Rare Air topic photos (https://flic.kr/s/aHsmVUvSDS ) . I've never seen one of those for sale, but it was not a solution for my cover/seatback dimensions problem anyway.

My tonneau frustration has been that my full tonneau has to be partially unsnapped in order to tuck down behind the seats, because my seatback is well aft of the door edge. This also means I can't leave the passenger side of the tonneau in place when I drive, because the zipper doesn't extend far enough.

Yesterday I ordered a custom tonneau to address these issues. Please see https://www.flickr.com/gp/farsightful/3bSdA3 for the outline of my bespoke tonneau cover. The purple line is where you have to fold the tonneau cover if you leave it all snapped in. The red line is the long zipper mine will have, about 47 inches rather than 36 or 37 for typical full tonneaus. The two green lines are 11 inch zippers so that the cover can stay fully snapped in and still open far enough back to fold behind the seats. The blue line is the new line along which either or both of the two halves can fold down behind the seats.

Of course, we're so deep into the summer car season that I won't see the new cover until October, but at least a solution is coming.

Other points of interest from discussion with the car interiors guy: Stayfast full tonneau about $100 more than vinyl just for the material. Sonnendeck and other German canvas completely absurd in price. Canvases are somewhat limited in color selection, especially in white, where the closest is sort of an oatmeal grey. I ordered vinyl, for price, for the bright white, and for the ease of keeping vinyl clean.

@wrkinprogress posted:

Yesterday I ordered a custom tonneau to address these issues. Please see https://www.flickr.com/gp/farsightful/3bSdA3 for the outline of my bespoke tonneau cover.

wait, I want to know about that giant Speedster photo behind your car in those pics. Where’d you source that?! I want one!

@Ryan (formerly) in NorCal posted:

wait, I want to know about that giant Speedster photo behind your car in those pics. Where’d you source that?! I want one!

Neither car is a Speedster. Both are convertibles.

@wrkinprogress posted:

@Jim Gilbert - Madison, Mississippi Was the starting point for your project one of those crescent-moon-shaped things, or a true half-tonneau like the one on the silver speedster in the Rare Air topic photos (https://flic.kr/s/aHsmVUvSDS ) . I've never seen one of those for sale, but it was not a solution for my cover/seatback dimensions problem anyway.

Other points of interest from discussion with the car interiors guy: Stayfast full tonneau about $100 more than vinyl just for the material. Sonnendeck and other German canvas completely absurd in price. Canvases are somewhat limited in color selection, especially in white, where the closest is sort of an oatmeal grey. I ordered vinyl, for price, for the bright white, and for the ease of keeping vinyl clean.

My car had two tonneau's. I cut the half tonneau. What I wanted was a top boot like the convertibles have. The half tonneau catches wind. It flaps and pulls at the corner fasteners; the ones with the turn latch near the rear of the doors.

Hartz canvas is similar to Stayfast, Canvas is the conventional material used on European and classic  car tops and covers.  It is an indication of quality like leather. The extra $100 is worth paying.

@Ryan (formerly) in NorCal Neither the car nor the tapestry is remotely mine, sadly. See the Rare Air topic on SOC a weekend ago for the context of that photo.

You can google and find services that will take a decently hi resolution photo and blow it up printed on fabric to the feet by feet size of the one you saw in my photo. At more reasonable prices, Staples and other shops have good color printers with a 52 inch platen, so they can print to order 52 inches by as long as you want. If you have them do a big one, make sure they have enough hands and table-space to lay it flat and face up for a couple minutes just off the printer. Especially if they are printing on their heavier stock, it will want to curl up and smear itself.

@Jim Gilbert - Madison, Mississippi I respect your recommendation regarding the desirability of canvas over vinyl, and I know it's widely shared. Including by me, in general. I like the feel and the classy matte appearance of canvas.

I fell into the white tonneau, tho, and now I like the distinctive look. I've been to two speedster events since I've had the car, Carlisle and the Rare Air museum exhibit, and at each of those there was someone else's silver speedster with a black tonneau. I thought about light grey to match the carpeting, but I was worried that a silver speedster with a grey tonneau would look like a very small naval vessel. So white it is. Bonus: I have until September to waffle before the shop orders the fabric .

Thanks again for your comments. I look forward to your future projects.

@ryan in

Just about any place that does signs has a wide-format printer these days to do larger signs and wraps, too.  Most of those systems can take a hi-res photo (6MP or larger) and print it onto different materials.

The tough part might be finding a photo with that kind of resolution to remain decent looking when blown up to something the size of a bedspread.  You might need something between 12MP and 25MP (unless they have some smoothing software to up-convert a lower res).

When I was doing graphic art as a job, one of my first questions was "Do you have artwork". Come to find out, their definition of artwork was a matchbook cover. These were the ones that usually didn't want to pay for art, so sh*t in sh*t out.

There are filters that can make a lower res photo look decent when enlarged. It won't be crisp, but from five foot or more away, it still looks good. In some instances, it looks better than a crisp image.

Thanks for all the help! Nearly all of my photos are taken on my iPhone (~12MP), so I think I’m good. Not to mention the Apple billboards often say “Shot on iPhone”. So far my largest prints have been 40x30” on Costco canvas. Looks like there’s room to go bigger!