Practically Classics Forum

Im new to stags so a bit of help reqiured. is there an in depth article on adjusting the stag soft top , the workshop manual is very limited.
when I bought the car I was told that the top was hard to close on one side. On closer investigation I found that there was only one bolt fixing the hood to the car body on one side so I thought this was the problem but I was wrong I re fitted the bolts and spring and found that the hood would not pull fully open it was fouling the door B piller and again when shutting the torney cover it would not close as it was hitting the hood. When I remove two of the fixing bolts the hood pulls fully closed and the torney cover is also ok but as I said originaly the oposite side wont reach the position so as to fit the closer handle. Not very clear I know but I have to start some where.

Regards John

cannot help much with the hood I am afraid but are you a member of the Stag Owners Club ? Their forum is very good and there may well be someone who will be able to help. If you are not a member you can have a free trial on the forum for a few weeks anyway.

ideally you need to look at another car- I don't know what a Stag frame is like but a Herald/Vitesse frame is a pretty complex affair, the factory manual shows all the millions of bits but not really how they interact, mine was wrong but I didn't know exactly how it was wrong until I physically looked at one that was right.........it all became clear then what someone had done to my header rail attachments in the dim'n'distant past !!

I don't know if this helps, but a friend has a Stag that he bought without the soft top. The frame was there, so he rang a breaker (that advertised in PC) to see if he could get a replacement and was told that the Stag soft top is NOT a job for a DIY-er.

The Stag has been SORN'd for about six or eight years and is parked in a garage, he's got a TVR Chimera a couple of years ago and he is now bored with that too!

Thanks for the comments, I bought a paper back book (practical classics resoration triumph stag) there is quite a large section on re building the hood frame and then fitting the hood but again very little on the set up, after more investigations it looks as if the driver side front corner is welded and these should be riveted so Im not sure where to go from here.

How about this?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Triumph-Stag-Hood ... 2c5b4eed2b

it looks as if the driver side front corner is welded and these should be riveted so Im not sure where to go from here.

...this is what had happened with my Vitesse- the L shaped frame to header brackets had rusted out at some time so the whole lot had been welded together on both sides, quite neatly and it didn't show, but losing the little bit of essential movemment the brackets provide. It was only from looking at a known unmolested frame that I could work out what was wrong and why my frame wouldn't adjust properly. I ended up fabricating new bits which wasn't too difficult once I knew how it was supposed to work- for which the manual is useless.

It really is a complicated affair, much more complex than the other ragtops I've had and I suppose the Stag one will be the just as elaborate- I would really recommend physically eyeballing a working one!

the front corners are riveted so they can move, they rust up and break because they need the odd drop of oil. Not sure to be honest but a recon or good second hand frame may be a idea ?

how much of a problem would it be to remove the soft top covering leaving the frame in place or at least remove the header rail cover,


john

John - I would try the SOC forum there are some guys on there who are very good with hoods, one guy who refurbs them etc posts on there regularly. To be honest probably the best thing is to get a good second hand hood and frame and fit that. I tackle most thing but I reckon to fit a new hood to a frame and get it looking right would be difficult to say the least. No reason why you could not just expose the header rail but that joint needs to be riveted so it can move.