Ruby sunroof

[Tiger]

Any advice on what material and thickness to use to fill in the rear part.
Also to cover the metal sliding frame.
Hoping to buy the roof mounting frame from Martin Prior.
Regards 
            Tim

PS The car was bought in sorry state with very little roof remaining

[Martin Prior]

Originally, the rear half of the roof would have been covered with leathercloth laid over hessian and wadding.  Personally, I prefer to use leathercloth over aluminium sheet on the timber frame for this are - it eliminates any sagging or other problems with tensioning.

The whole sunroof arrangement is a fairly integrated unit, so I wouldn't get too involved with sorting out the back half until you have everything else to hand to work in with it.

We're just about to get started on another batch of sunroof parts, if you're anywhere near ready.

[Tiger]

Martin yes I would like to purchase the parts mentioned in the e mail sent to your address.

[Denis Sweeney]

Tim, like yourself I had no wooden parts in my Ruby when it was purchased back in the late 1980's and there were no suppliers to my knowledge at that time who produced such items and so I had to chase round to find Ruby owners with the roof linings missing etc and wing it a fair bit. 

However my brother found a couple of couple old documents which detailed how to refurbish an Austin Seven roof and I attach these here your information.

I made all woodwork myself apart from some from the doors, and was completed back in the 80', however the project stalled and was only completed a year or so ago.
I will follow this up with a few photos on a word doc of my Ruby roof etc for your information.

Also for your information I purchased all my roofing materials, hessian, wadding, leather cloth and the roof sealer from Woolies
Hope the attached is useful.

denis s

[Martin Prior]

I hadn't seen Denis' documents before, but the first one in particular looks like a very concise and accurate summary.

[Denis Sweeney]

Hi Tim, I attach the photos of my roof restoration which followed the articles I posted earlier, I hope these are of use.

Best of luck

denis s

[Tiger]

Dennis
Many thanks for the excellent explanations and pictures.
This is a massive help to carry out the sun roof rebuild.
Regards
Tim

[Martin Prior]

Francis - Yes, the tracks are screwed through the leathercloth. We fit them with a bead of sealant under the track. The bolts that you mention sound like something that shouldn't be there. Can you post a photo?

[Parazine]

Francis - Yes, the tracks are screwed through the leathercloth.  We fit them with a bead of sealant under the track.  The bolts that you mention sound like something that shouldn't be there.  Can you post a photo?

Martin et al,

I beg to differ on this one, having researched the originality of this feature extensively in the seventies and eighties when rebuilding several Ruby and late ('34) Box type cars. In those days we had the resource of country scrap yards, still with original cars to forensically examine.....

The roofs were assembled by the Pytchley Autocar Co. Ltd. and presumably shipped to Austin as a sub-assembly. As such, they were self contained, merely needing to be placed on the production line with sealer into the body opening, located with the four 2BA or 5/32 BSW bolts (they are supposed to be there) and then screwed from inside the car, through the body and up, into the frame. Production engineers would not have tolerated assembling the roof bit-by-bit on the production line because it would have taken too much precious time.

The sliding ("H") frame was attached with rivets, through the steel edging after the roof was covered in fabric. I believe soft alloy rivets were used for this purpose.

As such, when restoring, the whole roof should be able to be built up off the car, then "dropped in" to the hole in the bodywork with sealer and secured from the underside only. The sealer needs to be able to flow around the section, some caravan mastics are probably best to use these days. Obviously today, the frame would have be built to suit the opening in the body but the whole sub-assembly should be fitted in one piece, sliding panel as well.

This is probably controversial because most restorers will have screwed the frame on from the outside but it's not how it was done originally I can assure you.

[Tony Griffiths]

Hi Tim, I attach the photos of my roof restoration which followed the articles I posted earlier, I hope these are of use.

Best of luck

denis s

Wonderful information - and great work. Thank you. In case members don't have "Open Office" or "LibreOffice" here are the files as PDFs.