This evening I had Jackie help me with the fitting of the canopy frame to the canopy. That is, the height adjustment to bring the WD-819A frame up to meet the canopy where the canopy is touching the WD-814 front hoop/roll bar. Of course, we are doing the Tom Clark fastback, so I have to take the instructions from page 9-3 of the manual and drawing #44 and extrapolate as necessary for our situation.
What I was a little dismayed to find was that we will need to life the WD-819A canopy frame by a whopping 9/32" (or roughly 7.2mm) in order to get it to meet the canopy *with* the 1/8" gap for the sikaflex bond. That's a huge amount! It leaves us 1/2" of the roller shank to drill for the retaining bolts/pins (or whatever I decide vis-a-vis canopy release mechanism). I juggled the canopy around to see if we could obtain a better fit, but unfortunately we have what we have. As it is I had to trim around 1/4" off the canopy slight forward of the canopy latch weldment to clear the WD-819C forward rib as we lifted the canopy (and will likely have to trim a little more). Further, and a little more worrying, is that this may also affect the retaining pins and how well they hold the rear of the canopy. I won't know that for sure until I can get the height problem sorted out.
In any case, another drawing and another job for the local engineering shop to knock me up a couple of aluminium spacers to lift the frame on the roller assembly. Which means more money (though not a lot, I expect) but more importantly, another delay. As if this fastback mod hasn't cost me enough of both already. It had better be worth it..!
