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Wed Feb 15, 2023 7:51 pm

Howdy folks,

I'm working on the top of a 68 vert and need a little help :) Take a look at this picture of the crank assembly. It's kinda hard to see but this section is not sitting flush to any part of the bow inside and I'm thinking it should.

Does anyone have a picture of how this section is supposed to sit inside the wooden bow?

Thanks!

Lee

Thu Feb 16, 2023 12:08 am

Ahhh, the "superior" front bow that is available for some time now. I can only guess that is an M&T Manufacturing prduct but cant be sure. Yes, that section needs to be recessed, below the "surface", so you need to carve a bit there. Unfortunately the problems doesn't stop there. These bows (I hope that you have some other product!) are so badly made, copied from a wrong shaped bow to point that they are not usable - the front edge that should be in contact with windshield frame is made shallower, not enought material there and when you make you final fit and latch the top theres is a 1 -1,5 cm gap between the bow and the windshield frame. So far I managed to "fix" one but ist not the right way to make a convertible top. I saw that also in photos of a swedish guy - you can see his efforts here:

https://boxerville.se/forum/viewtopic.php?id=480&p=7

And just a observation - West Cost Metrics used to have a really bad template for this bow that was available for a loooong time. So called synthetic bow made with alloy core and black foam on outside. Their template got progressively worse with time because of the usage, but recently they made a new template and I dare to say that their product is far better that this wooden bow. Still needs a bit of trimming here and there but way more usable. But their bow for a later model is absolute trash!

Thu Feb 16, 2023 10:06 am

Disc wrote: Ahhh, the "superior" front bow that is available for some time now. I can only guess that is an M&T Manufacturing prduct but cant be sure. Yes, that section needs to be recessed, below the "surface", so you need to carve a bit there. Unfortunately the problems doesn't stop there. These bows (I hope that you have some other product!) are so badly made, copied from a wrong shaped bow to point that they are not usable - the front edge that should be in contact with windshield frame is made shallower, not enought material there and when you make you final fit and latch the top theres is a 1 -1,5 cm gap between the bow and the windshield frame. So far I managed to "fix" one but ist not the right way to make a convertible top. I saw that also in photos of a swedish guy - you can see his efforts here:

https://boxerville.se/forum/viewtopic.php?id=480&p=7

And just a observation - West Cost Metrics used to have a really bad template for this bow that was available for a loooong time. So called synthetic bow made with alloy core and black foam on outside. Their template got progressively worse with time because of the usage, but recently they made a new template and I dare to say that their product is far better that this wooden bow. Still needs a bit of trimming here and there but way more usable. But their bow for a later model is absolute trash!

The last ghia I did ironically was a 68 ghia vert just like the 68 I'm doing now.
And yes the wood bow I have came from M&T where I got my last one from but the last one I had was actually made half-way decent and didn't have to do much mods.

It's been so long I worked the top bow I couldn't remember if the center recessed or not so thank you, let the hacking begin 😪