We had ordered the windscreen from Gerry a while ago and arranged to go and collect it. We were keen to fit it straight away so got to it. As we are building the 289 Le Man, we were aware that screen rake is slightly more than the roadster to accommodate the detachable roof, so it was essential to fit the windscreen together with the roof in order to get them to fit together perfectly.
The first job was to cut the holes in the body where the pillar legs go through. This was fairly easy as the fibreglass had small marks from the cast indicating the position. The positions for demister vents and window wipers are also marked but we’ll fit them later. Just to make sure we laid the screen flat over the front so the pillars were over the points where they’d enter the body. We found that the marks were fairly accurate. Also the build manual states that the hole should start 31 5/8” +- 1/8” from the back of the doors. This was also the case, so we were confident we were on track.
We then could drill and dremel out the holes for the pillars before we got the roof in position. We measured 2 1/8 inch in from the inner door for the position of the roof as recommended in the build manual, but we found that once the roof went on the top of the body that it sat naturally (more or less) in the correct position. We also put the upper boot lid in place at this point to check the back of the roof sat perfectly inline with the line of the boot lid. After a little fiddling to get the position perfect we clamped it solidly into place.
we then slid the screen in to check the position. We found we had to do this few times, extending the hole slightly bigger each time until the screen sat comfortable in the correct position against the rim of the roof. We also cut some small pieces of ply wood and positioned them under the screen when fitting to allow a 3mm gap (as recommended in the manual) between the frame and body. Once we were happy everything was right we then clamped the pillars firmly into place ready to drill for the bolts.
The next job was to drill the pillars and scuttle frame plates. The build manual advises fitting aluminium spacers if required, we found pillars were flush with the scuttle frame plates so none were needed. We then drilled through and bolted secure with 3 hole M8 bolts either side. We plan to replace these later with round headed cap bolts for the sake of being SVA compliant. The final thing was to put the covering plate in position that covered the hole in the body and the the centre bracket. Due to the increased rake we found we had to file the holes out on these a little to get them to fit flush with the body.
Job done! We may need to take the screen out to do the heater vents but more on this later. Once we had the screen and roof in position though it suddenly gave us a great impression of how the finished car will look and made me feel we are really making some progress.