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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Winter hood, summer hood

When I fitted my new hood a few years ago I followed the advice on here about how it was important to fit it on a good warm day so that the vinyl would stretch nicely to result in a nice taught fitting hood. And sure enough it did. Very neat!
Problem is as soon as the weather cools a bit the screen-top clips become very tight to engage. I am sure I am not the only one to experience this!

And when winter weather arrives on cold days it gets impossible to even get the clips to reach to the screen top. And the side fasteners won't clip down by the B post either. Unfortunate really, when it is in cold wet winter weather when you really need the hood to fit best.

Anyway, I have come up with a solution. I have several hood frames (3 actually) so what I plan to do is to do a "cut and shut" to the main uprights of one of the frames. I will shorten and then reweld them just above the mounting bracket on either side. Then I will have a frame for winter use, and a frame for summer use!
Guy W

Ha.... I was thinking along those same lines before I got the hard top years ago, I never persued it farther

My thought was to make a wooden vyinal covered spacer that could be attacth to the frame of the hood and the clips could be easily readjusted

Prop
Prop and the Blackhole Midget

I always thought my frame was tight and as the previous owner had bodged it I couldn't change the 'length' without showing some nasty wear marks. Anyway having had the sunshine a lot I was putting my hood up and down a lot (its up in the garage as it has some drips) and one day it was easy. So I took a look at the mechanicals of the frame and worked out it actually flexes in two dimensions front to back (length and height). I spent some time playing with it and now worked out how to get it on 'easier' in fact the missus can do it. Can't explain it but I sort of flex it a bit before pulling down and hey presto its relatively easy. I think the frame can sort of hump up and flatten out as it were. (Is that what those sort of extra side joints around about the head position above the doors are for?)
And yes of course mine is a 78 and could be different. (Its certainly different to the tent ones of an early sprite).
Anyway just my 3 penny worth.
Dave Squire

Great idea Guy if you already have a tight hood. I might do that myselft with my spare frame. And it's a warning to others not to follow the accepted procedure of fitting on a warm day, when the plastic stretches more than it should.

When I next buy a new hood I'm going to fit it on a cold day, maybe even in the winter. Then when it stretches in the summer and is too loose, I'll adjust the frame to take up the slack.
Lawrence Slater

An easier solution is to put the hood up on a nice warm day in say September or October and then leave it up till spring. Job done!

John Payne

Someone used to sell mohair tops....

expensive yes, but I wonder if those suffer the huge range of expansion / contration like the platic tops

Prop
Prop and the Blackhole Midget

John if you leave the hood up all winter, as Nigel frequently says -- and most agree --, you'll miss out on all the top down days of sun between September and the Spring. Not much point having a soft-top if you're not going to use it.
Lawrence Slater

The problem is that much of the summer, or at least this last summer, the hood is down all the time. Car lives outside but I don't bother putting the hood up overnight. At most I will sometimes put the tonneau on to keep the local cats out.
It is in the winter that the hood gets continually put up and taken down - sometimes several times in a day. And of course that is when it is likely to be hardest. Sometimes I put the hood up overnight but cannot fasten the front clasps as the temperature has already dropped by the time I remember to go out and "cover up". Sometimes I just put a cheap nylon car cover over it instead.
Guy W

Sorry Lawrence, just teasing! I'm a frustrated sports car owner cos I've got a permanent hardtop!

Guy, could you not do something with the adjustable mounting point of the frame? Maybe try and make more adjustment at the 3 bolts behind the seats?
John Payne

John, yes I realise there is some scope for adjustment there, but it isn't nearly enough for my ill - fitting hood. I just got over enthusiastic about following the advice on getting it taught when I first fitted it. And I am sure it has shrunk even more since then! As all the girls would say!
Guy W

I have to put an electric space heater in my car for about 15 minutes to put the top up if the temperature falls below 10 Celsius.
Trevor Jessie

Hood for winter, tonneau for summer?
Growler

Actually Trevor's method is how I fitted mine new. I too had read the 'do it on a hot day' stuff but it was the middle of February. I rested a 2kw heater on the tunnel, put the new hood over the frame and screen, shut the doors, then went for a brew. It was about 2 minutes away from melting when I came back!!
John Payne

John,
This is EXACTLY the problem, doing it like that! I followed advice on t'internet to do it that way, and got it nice and taught. But age and cold winters have shrunk the hood to the extent that it is very hard to get it to stretch back as it once was. Maybe re-heating it might help but I doubt it would last for long otherwise I wouldn't be having this problem following some decent hot days this last summer. I think this heating to get it nice and taught is actually bum advice.
Guy W

Yes, mine was like a drum skin!

5 years later it still got comments. Is that a new hood - it looks amazing. Never seen one that fits as good as that etc.

Little did they know that in that 5 years it had never even been un clipped never mind put down! I daren't in case it wouldn't go back again!

It's while you are clipping up a tight hood that you realise what the rod is for in the middle of the screen!

John Payne

Ah well then John. That's the difference. Good advice for you if you never take the hood down. Abdominal advice for me who erects and lowers the hood repeatedly, almost every day!
Guy W

A few years back, I had my car booked in for an MoT on a freezing November morning.

The last time I had used the car had been on a nice sunny afternoon in October and had the roof down.

When I opened the garage to take the car for the MoT, I knew there was no way the hood would go up, so I just put a wooly hat on!

My car still had its original hood, so it wasn't the way that I or a PO had fitted it.

I would concur that a hot day - or fan heater - is not the best way to fit a hood.
Dave O'Neill2

How easy would it be to adapt the hard top from a merc slk to fit on a Spridget? Or maybe that small vauxhall? LOL.
Lawrence Slater

This thread was discussed between 06/10/2013 and 08/10/2013

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