SPAM-LOW: necessity of a roof

[haygood at myway.com (Brian Haygood)]

Don't the ragtop roof cars also have a habit of breaking atthe corners?  I'm not sure I remember exactly, but someone was trying to repair one a few years back.  



If you cut the roof panel out, use large radii at the corners and consider some reinforcments at each corner, or anywhere else in the body you would like.  These cars could do with some reinforcements in stock form, so I would definately add some if I'm cutting out all that triangulation from the roof.  



With a convertible you are worried about the body folding in half near the driver's feet or elsewhere on the floor.  In your case you are just worried about the lost torsional regidity the roof provides.  The convertibles suffer that as well, but it comes second to the folding car problem.  Carefully planned reinforcements wouldn't be difficult or heavy.  



If we are worried enough about this to tie our strut towers together, then a big hole in the roof probably warrants some attention.  I think the rag-top roofs don't use a particularly large hole compared to the steelsunroof cars, do they?  



Brian



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