Sunroof part 1

A little while ago the TR7 was looking nice, all in grey primer and (to my mind, anyway) about five minutes from getting a respray. Fast forward to now and I am back where I started, in a sea of dust and the car looking like a patchwork.

Why? Because, having had two quotes for £7k to finish the car, I have decided to do it myself. So, that has meant lots of reading up on "blocking" (using a block of sandpaper to straighten any (almost) imperceptible high spots and low spots on the panels) and skim filling. It is a big job and I am starting to see why the quotes came in so high. It is taking ages, one panel at a time, but hopefully it will be worth it.

You know how it is with old car restorations - you do one bit here then get side-tracked elsewhere. That's what happened this weekend, as I was filling and blocking the roof area, ahead of the sunroof aperture.

While I was doing this I realised I had filled over a number of revit holes, originally there to hold in place the Weathershields sunroof. The rivet holes got drilled out again, and my mind wandered. What of the sunroof?

The roof on RJW 307R was certainly aftermarket, judging by the fairly rough work to the aperture. It is the "short" sunroof and not listed as an extra on the Heritage certificate, so I reckon it would have been a dealer option, possibly. Anyway, into the shed I went to dig out what was, in reality, a grubby, dusty and torn item sellotaped together with the frames, which after some unwrapping fitted the car well and gave me a lift.

The sunroof itself was in a sorry state, so it was time to get brutal and strip it. The black cover came off fairly easily with the help of a hot air gun to soften various gluey bits (and I had forgotten that it was originally brown. Neil and I used VinylKote to change it black in 1994, for our trip to Greece), leaving the remainder looking not so bad. The mechanism is all good although the headlining will need a massive clean.

The metal, er, members at the front and rear of the roof were very rusty and made me realise just how much water must have been getting in over the years. These were removed and so far the front one has been de-rusted, treated and painted.

So, here's the plan. The top cover will go to the guys at Littleport Boat Haven, to be used as a template for a lovely new one. While it is away, I'll carry on refurbishing the "inner" part of the roof by cleaning it and repainting the headlining. On that note, I did today dig out of the shed the original headling for the remainder of the car, and what a sorry state that was in. I do have a brand new, boxed BL headlining but it will need cutting into shape to accommodate the sunroof aperture.  I'll leave that news until next time.