MikeC5

I used oak, which seemed denser than what it came with but who knows if that was original. I also added a heat shield to the front boards since the the toe board looked a bit charred in the area close to the header pipe. The other thing I had to consider with using non-plywood was the area around the clutch & brake pedals. The narrow sections across the grain are very fragile (easily broken along the grain). I reinforced these areas on the back side to prevent this. The board it came with had these areas chiseled out from the back side to about 1/2 thickness and then a another piece glued in the grain direction to reinforce. I can take some photos of what I did if you like.

Agreed. The Pertronix seems like overkill to me, unless your distributor is really difficult to access. If your wiring is good, clean and adjust the points at the start of the driving season (at most).

It's interesting to think about these cars being only 30 - 35 years old at the time.

I guess I could see using one of these if points are super rare for your vehicle and you put a lot of miles on it. Is point wear that big of a deal on old Dodges?

Hi David, I'm trying to make sure I understand how to bind off the wing. I've sketched up what I understand to be a double edge binding around the wing material and reinforcing piece. But in the photos, I don't see anything resembling the edge of the binding material showing on the outside of the top. I would much appreciate help with this detail.

I think it's a Led Zeppelin cover band...

Thanks David. Do you normally make a binding from top material or buy something ready-made like this? https://www.albrightssupply.com/Convertible-Top-Binding-Black-Stayfast-1-1-4-p/rbind.htm

This work really inspires me to get going on my top. Beautiful work!

That's quite a chunk of brass. Looks large enough in diameter to be a radiator cap.

I'm trying to get back at this during the coming winter. I could use some help figuring out what is normally done around the edges of the 'wings'. The photo shows what appear to be a separate reinforcing piece that get s sewn to the folder over edge of wing. The sketch is what I think is going on here (section through the bottom edge of wing). It looks like something similar is going on at the left/right edges of the top. I would appreciate any tips on how these reinforced areas are constructed.

I would agree that the friction drive may limit the potential pool of buyers. It's unconventional and any problems with it would be that much harder to find expert advice. And is that a rubber belt or a chain under there? It looks similar to the drive belt used on some Harleys.

Love that font.

I'm not aware of any patterns available. Even if there were, I don't think you could get around custom fitting the top to the car. With respect to imouttahere's post from 2009 above, I'm working on a top in the same fashion (two separate layers) but I can't find a good way to bond the inner lining to the outer top material (vinyl with thin white cotton layer on the inside). Contact cement bleeds through the inner liner material (tan bowdrill). Does anyone know of a 'dry' adhesive that might work?

Interesting. It seems I forgot the adage "correlation does not imply causation" . Are you sure about that? My own experience with a pre-unleaded gas engine was a '65 Plymouth Valiant with 225 slant 6. I had done a valve job on the engine in '79 or so and did not install hardened valve seats. I drove the car for another 80,000 miles when it began running poorly. Plugs, points and carb rebuild didn't help much. It turned out the valve clearances had closed up (solid lifters). I finally pulled the head to find severe valve seat recession. I thought this was due to running unleaded gas. I also found out that these engines had induction hardened valve seats starting in 1972, which I assumed was in anticipation of mandated use of un-leaded fuel in the US. This explains how I remember it... https://oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/20751-valve-seat-recession-explained/ I'm not a chemist or chemical engineer so I could be wrong... (just ask my wife)

Hi Charley, My recollection is that it may be a brass washer. Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos when I took mine apart.